


Config.sys

by Michael_McGruder



Series: IX [1]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Angst, Gen, Minor canon divergence, Possible Series X Spoilers, Series VII/VIII Gap Filler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-17 02:42:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2293970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michael_McGruder/pseuds/Michael_McGruder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the events of "Only The Good," the surviving crew members of Red Dwarf begin to reassemble their lives while Rimmer fends off an identity crisis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dynamic Relocation

Coming back online was always disorienting. Something Rimmer hated almost as much as going offline in the first place. It was an unpleasant reminder of the artificial nature of his existence. That under ordinary circumstances he wouldn’t be here at all. Try as he might, thinking of it as waking up never felt right. Like Lister trying to tell himself that a can of dog food was a piece of prime fillet steak in blue cheese sauce. Some things you just can’t fake.

Where did that memory come from? When he and Lister had been marooned on that ice planet, years ago. Rimmer tried to ignore the slow, festering burn the escapade caused in his brain whenever he thought of it and instead tried to focus on why that memory seemed slightly unfamiliar, even though it was something he’d never forget.

It was impossible to dwell on the thought as an onslaught of information was downloaded into his head. Like trying to pick out a singular piece of sand in a hurricane. He’d have to let it all fall back into place before being able to sift through and reorient himself to his own memories. He couldn’t even remember how he went offline in the first place. The last thing he remembered was shaking hands with Kryten, shaking hands with the Cat, hugging Lister. The cockpit of the Wildfire. Fire. That was the last clear memory he had, was of fire, of choking black smoke that burned his throat and lungs. He couldn’t breathe and then remembered he didn’t need to. An explosion of pain erupting in the back of his skull. What had he done, immediately crashed the Wildfire? No, he’d been on Red Dwarf. The antidote. Or was it a virus? He couldn’t hang onto those thoughts either as memories he didn’t remember were forced into his head. Floor 13. The trial.

These memories felt different than the ones immediately behind them, in Starbug’s hanger, and then he realized why. As a hologram, his memory recall was near perfect, being generated by a computer. Memories he’d created after he died were hard edged, like glass. Memories he’d had before he died were hazier. Imperfect. Organic. Recalling them was like trying to get dressed in the dark. The memories of Floor 13 were like that, coming into sharper clarity the closer they came to the fire.

That was the clearest thing in his mind. The fire. The vindictive flames licking at his flesh, eating him alive. He wanted to scream but the acrid smoke wouldn’t let him. Panic rose in his chest and he opened his eyes to see the clinical white ceiling of Red Dwarf’s medibay, and his anxiety diffused as though waking from a nightmare.

He looked over at Lister, who was watching him with a tight expression. He blinked and Lister grinned.

“Welcome back online, mate.”

An army of questions fought for the forefront of his mind, clogging it up until nothing was allowed to escape. Rimmer couldn’t imagine what kind of idiotic expression that was eliciting on his face, but it was enough to prompt some concern from Lister.

“You alright?” He asked cautiously, getting up from his seat to step closer to Rimmer.

“I… don’t feel anything,” he finally said, becoming aware of an all too familiar numbness.

“We thought it would be a good idea to boot you up in soft light mode, to avoid overtaxing your systems,” he explained. Soft light. That’s right, he was a hologram. Of course he was a hologram. What the smeg would Lister know about hologramatic systems? He’d been working with them for years, especially the lean years on Starbug. Rimmer closed his eyes, rubbing his face with his hands. He’d never felt this disoriented after booting up before. Except… there was a nagging familiarity to it that he couldn’t put his finger on. He opened his eye to see Lister still watching him with that anxious expression. It made him nervous.

“What do you remember?” Lister asked. The pieces were starting to fall together, but he was having a hard time understanding the picture. Rimmer could remember everything in sharp, high definition from a party they were having with Kryten, when they thought he was going to be dismantled and replaced, up to taking off in the Wildfire. Previous to Kryten’s party, memories became vague again. The details were missing, but hotspots of larger events burned in his mind, like a constellation, giving the basic idea of the shape as a whole. Mutated photo chemicals. An armor plated killing machine with more teeth than the entire Osmond family. A camphor wood trunk. The bright lights of a stage. Twin babies. A nuclear explosion to the face. Lister going into stasis.

That was the point where things started to splinter. Overlaid on top of everything that had happened after the radiation leak was the memory of hearing that Lister wasn’t going into stasis for hiding a cat, but was about to go on trial for stealing Starbug and a litany of other serious offences. Instead of cadmium 2 stripping the flesh from his bones and turning him to dust, he strolled into their sleeping quarters to gloat. It all went more or less downhill from there. What made it all the more disorienting was the seamless way these softer, organic memories seemed to connect with his life before the leak. What he couldn’t understand was why those memories were there in the first place.

“Rimmer, man. I think I’m gonna go get Kryten,” Lister said.

“Wait,” Rimmer said, sitting up from his supine position. Lister looked like he wanted to help him up, but Rimmer was still in soft light mode. “I didn’t do it, did I?”

“Eh?”

“I cocked it up, didn’t I? Becoming Ace. I couldn’t hack it, being a space hero,” he said, the last two words dripping with distain. Understanding filtered through Lister, who shook his head.

“Nah man, you are Ace. You did it.” This was probably true, Lister though with some nervous uncertainty. He had no way of knowing how his Ace, as he’d come to think of him, was doing out there in the multiverse. Something that made his stomach do flip-flops if he thought about it too much. Rimmer shook his head.

“If I’m Ace, what am I doing here?” Lister pulled up a chair and sat down.

“Okay,” he said, gearing up for a long, complicated explanation. “So you remember that you became Ace, yeah?” Rimmer nodded. “Okay so, up to the point that you left our dimension, your memories were recorded in the computer. I guess when you crossed dimensions, the connection was lost. That’s how Kryten explained it, anyway.” Lister watched Rimmer for a moment before asking, “do you remember anything else?”

“Floor 13,” Rimmer said. Lister nodded.

“So it worked,” Lister said, sounding relieved.

“What worked? What the smeg is going on?”

“Okay,” Lister said again, settling into second gear. “You remember what I was telling you about the nanobots reconstructing Red Dwarf and resurrecting the dead crew?” Lister gestured around Red Dwarf’s medibay indicating his evidence. “You were resurrected as well, and the resurrected Rimmer’s memories were recorded in the same file that was already on board.” Things were starting to fall into place for Rimmer, and Lister continued. “Do you remember the chameleonic microbe?” Rimmer nodded. “Do you remember going into the mirror universe for the antidote?”

“Vaguely,” he said with uncertainty. That was hazier. All he remembered was the fire. He gingerly probed the back of his skull.

“I’m not surprised,” Lister said. “Kryten got the Prism Laser working again, but the microbe was tearing up the ship. We had to ditch the captain’s quarters and leg it to the hanger, hoping there’d be something left to escape in. About half way there Holly told us you’d come back through the mirror. I figured our chances of there being a spare escape pod and you actually having come back with an antidote were about 50/50,” he said with a shrug, eliciting a scowl from Rimmer. “We found you conked out in the corridor with the formula in your hand. Cesiumfranciolithicmyxialobidiumrixydixydoxidrexidroxhide,” he recited with a cheeky grin. Rimmer could tell he’d been practicing that so he could repeat it off the cuff like it was nothing.

“Hang on, that’s not the antidote,” Rimmer said suddenly. “It was Zogothonium– something or other.” Lister shook his head.

“Nah, that’s the virus.”

“That’s the… that stupid moggy, he gave me the formula for the virus?”

“Yeah,” Lister said. “But when you came through the mirror, it turned into the antidote, see?” Lister laughed at Rimmer’s incredulous expression. “I knew you wouldn’t have figured that out on your own.”

“If it worked, why am I a hologram?” Rimmer asked with a touch of bitterness. Lister’s mirth faded.

“When we found you, you had a massive concussion, which is probably why you don’t remember a lot of what happened at the end. Your head was cracked open like an egg, and your throat and lungs were cooked.” Lister frowned. “I don’t know which one killed you, the bang on the head or the smoke. But the antidote didn’t repair the medibay in time to save you.” A morbid silence hung between them before Lister changed tracks. “When we were talking about booting up your hologram, Kryten and Holly said there was a risk of the conflicting memories recorded causing some kind of write failure in your file. Hence the soft start up,” he said, indicating to Rimmer’s red uniform. “Are you able to switch to hard light?”

“I think so,” Rimmer said, making the switch. It was a semi-autonomic function he didn’t have to think about too hard to accomplish. His tunic switched from red to blue and he felt the bed solidly beneath him. Lister put his hand on his shoulder with an expression of relief on his face. There was an odd nagging in the back of his mind that wondered why Lister would give two smegs about his condition, and wondered why he’d been brought back as a hologram in the first place. That voice came from the man who’d shared a prison cell with him. The man who’d had a tube of the sexual magnetism virus doused on him in cage full of horny, deranged convicts. The voice coming from the man who had hugged Lister before climbing into the cockpit of the Wildfire thought it wasn’t so incredulous to have been brought back. These conflicting emotions wrestled in the pit of his stomach, making him feel slightly ill. He noticed Lister’s hand still on his shoulder, and he simultaneously wanted to hug him and throttle him. He did neither.

“Kryten wants to monitor your systems over the next few days, make sure your T-Count is level and all that. Holly would do it, but I think something’s wrong with him.”

“Something’s always wrong with that pixilated senile git,” Rimmer said and sighed. “Where,” he hesitated. “Where’s my body?”

“You’re… it’s… uh. The cargo deck. We weren’t sure if you wanted to do anything with it or not.”

“I think… I’d like to see it,” Rimmer said.

 

Lister and Rimmer took the lift to one of the cargo decks in uneasy silence. The closer they got to Rimmer’s body, the more wound up and anxious he became. He was aware of Lister’s eyes on him the whole time, pretending that he wasn’t watching him, and Rimmer pretended he didn’t notice.

When they reached the deck, Lister led Rimmer to a dingy white cryopod. Rimmer hesitated before stepping up to the pod. Despite being in hard light mode, there was a curious numbness creeping up his limbs. He came forward and looked down at the pod, down at his own still face.

Rimmer experienced a kind of surreal, macabre detachment. This body was him, but it wasn’t really _him_. He was a three million year old pile of dust. This was the third time he’d been killed, but the first time he’d seen a body. Then it came back to him, why there was something familiar about the organic overlay of his new memories. Something similar had happened when he’d altered the timeline with those mutated photo slides. Somehow altering the timeline had kept him alive. For a few ecstatic minutes he’d lived, until his soft organic body was torn apart in an explosion in the cargo deck. Seeing anything more than blackened chunks of viscera and bone was also impossible. The universe seemed to have it in for Arnie J.

Had that Rimmer been a real Rimmer? Realer than the one he was looking at now? Whatever the validity of those three bodies had been to whomever was keeping track, they were all fighting for space in his head now. Books he didn’t understand on the nature of being and non-being returned unpleasantly to the forefront of his mind, and the fringes of an identity crisis he’d beaten back years ago started tickling at the perimeter of his consciousness.

He felt slightly faint and wanted to run screaming from his corpse, from this ship, from being and non-being. He did none of those things. He thought of Ace Rimmer and seethed. It was just his luck to be cheated out of dimension hopping by a technicality, to end up staring at his own dead body while Lister shifted uncomfortably beside him. Rimmer latched onto the familiar resentment like a security blanket and turned on his heel without saying anything, heading back to the lift.

“What do you want to do with… with the body?” Lister asked as they ascended in the lift. Rimmer sat next to him with his arms crossed, sulking.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“Krissy thought it would be right to give you a proper funeral send off, you know?” Oh that’s right, Kristine Kochanski was still with them.

Rimmer had sat through two of what could pass as his funerals. The first time a can of his ashes, along with 1,167 others had been shot off into space with little fanfare. Lister had worn a black tie and arm band. At the time it had less to do with Rimmer and more to do with the more than a thousand other crew mates who had emotional priority over his unpleasant bunkmate. The second time was presided over Ace’s light bee, but the funeral had been for Rimmer. A funeral for all the smeggy, gitty, cowardice he was supposed to be leaving behind? That was one way to look at it. But Lister’s speech wasn’t intended for someone he hated. Thinking about their time together on Floor 13, he wondered what he’d have to say about this Rimmer. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Just shoot it off into space with the rest of the garbage,” he growled.

“Are you sure?” Rimmer nodded.

Kochanski. Kochanski was back on board, which left a question hovering like a raincloud over Rimmer, one he didn’t want to ask out loud.

“Kochanski’s still with us then,” he said. “I guess that means you two will be bunking together?”

“I’m not sure,” Lister said. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“We’re not exactly _together_ , at the moment, you know?” Oh, that’s right, Rimmer remembered. At some point Lister had told the other Rimmer who was now the same Rimmer as himself, more or less, that the Kochanski they had on board was from another dimension. This was giving him a headache. “I dunno,” Lister said. “We have a lot to work out.”

“Does she still want to find her own dimension?” Rimmer asked. He had an odd mix of admiration and contempt for the navigation officer that he couldn’t explain. He remembered not thinking very much of her before, but he seemed to be harboring a fair amount of respect and attraction he was certain wasn’t there before. Rimmer wondered if this was one of the write glitches Lister had mentioned.

“I don’t know. We were all sort of preoccupied with the ship disintegrating around us and the rest of the crew getting wiped out again.”

“Again?”

“The microbe destroyed the escape pods the rest of the crew tried to escape in.” Lister’s voice was tight with grief. It seems like everyone’s second chances were destined to forever dangle cruelly in front of them.


	2. System Restore

Rimmer was far from the only one who was feeling a great deal of ambivalence about their current circumstances. They were all glad to be free of their cells in the tank, but Lister and Kochanski were coping with being the last human beings in the universe for the second time. Even in their smeggy situation in the secret prison block of Red Dwarf’s lower decks, the resurrected crew provided was a chance to start over. Not only their lives but possibly even the human race.

The Cat wasn’t exactly impressed by his introduction to the homo sapiens as a whole, and frankly was glad to see them go. The whole ship reeked of them, and now he’d have to reclaim all of his things with his aerosol musk. Kryten felt similarly, harbouring the opinion that the human race wasn’t good enough for Lister, that he could do better. The difference between him and the Cat was that he didn’t feel it entirely appropriate to inform Lister or Kochanski of this sentiment within minutes of learning that the rest of the crew were dead. To Kryten, the last few months among the crew of Red Dwarf had been an interesting experiment that just didn’t work out.

It came as something of a relief to Rimmer that both versions of himself could agree that neither of them were sad to see the crew go. In fact, he was almost as grateful as the Cat and Kryten that they’d buggered back off to Hell. He luxuriated in his vindictiveness. Every single last one of them. Including himself. Almost. He supposed if he hadn’t been killed he wouldn’t have known he wasn’t sailing the multiverse, rescuing buxom blondes from space Nazis. This kind of soul searching, Rimmer felt, could best be done in the privacy of the observation dome with a hot cup of tea, not in the human trash bin of Floor 13. This required Captain Hollister to be dead, and Rimmer would have happily danced on the fat bastard’s grave if he’d had one.

They’d had a small memorial service in the karaoke bar on C Deck, but Lister and Kochanski were acutely aware that of the five of them, they were the only ones in the least bit bothered by this “tragedy.” Rimmer attempted an emotionally sober disposition, but came off more aloof and detached. He noticed this slipping the tiniest wedge between him and Lister, and Lister’s shared grief with Kochanski bringing them infinitesimally closer. Rimmer may not have known what the game was yet, but he was keeping score.

Afterwards Lister and Rimmer returned in bearable silence to the cargo deck to send off Rimmer’s coffin. Despite Rimmer’s outward indifference to the body, and no matter how much Lister hadn’t gotten along with this latest incarnation, he could never have tossed him out with the trash. So the pair ejected the coffin out of one of the airlocks on its own. Rimmer gave the fleeing box a clinical Rimmer salute, and Lister brought his hand casually to his hairline and back down to his side. Somehow Lister had the feeling that his gesture carried more emotion than Rimmer had for his own corpse. He reminded himself that this was the third time Rimmer had died, not counting parallel and invalidated universes, and maybe it was becoming a pedestrian occurrence for the hologram. He also reminded himself that no one hated Rimmer more than Rimmer.

“Kryten is moving our stuff from the grey hole on P Deck to one of the officer’s quarters. I figured you wouldn’t mind,” Lister said. A shrill voice in Rimmer’s head protested that Lister let that metal moron touch his personal belongings without asking permission first, but an older part of himself managed to beat back the other from verbalizing the complaint. He just nodded instead.

“I think this is a good thing,” Rimmer said briskly. Lister favoured him with a dubious expression. “Think about it,” Rimmer encouraged. “Okay, yes, some people you used to hang out with three million years ago remain gone, I acknowledge that must put a bit of a damper on things. But we’re not in the tank,” he said, ticking off a finger. “We’re not on Starbug anymore, limping along asteroid belts praying to hateful gods that there will be something edible on burnt out Simulant derelicts. You have Kochanski back. Okay not _the_ Kochanski, but a Kochanski. We have Holly back.” Rimmer had nearly even convinced himself to be in a good mood. “When I had… left Starbug,” he paused, reorienting his memories, “we were in pretty dire straits. Scavenging space weevils and drinking urine recyc. Yes the rest of the crew are gone, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a chance to start over, Lister.” The Scouser shook his head as they entered the lift.

“What kind of parallel universe is this if you’re the one telling me to look on the bright side?”

“I know. Cheer the smeg up so I can go back to sulking.”

By the time the pair reached the higher decks, Kryten had finished furnishing their quarters, in spite of the skutters attempting to aid him. Rimmer was almost ecstatic. After being cramped together on Starbug, then cramped together in the tank, it was mainline bliss being able to stroll the decks without running into anyone.

Entering their white paneled sleeping quarters, Lister immediately hopped into the top bunk and sighed deeply. Maybe Rimmer was right. For the first time in a long time, Lister felt some semblance of normality. Rimmer sitting in the bunk below him, fully stocked food dispensers, Kochanski down the hall. Lister felt like they’d actually be able to make things work this time.

Lister watched Rimmer stand up from the bunk and stare at something in the corner of the room. A black trunk. The trunk that had been a hot festering sore that eventually knitted itself into an ugly jagged scar in their relationship. Ultimately it had been lost completely when Starbug crashed on a GELF moon.

Rimmer felt that creeping numbness again as he cautiously approached the trunk, as though it were a venomous snake or worse, a cruel practical joke. His tongue darted over his lips as his mouth went dry. He kneeled in front of the trunk and reached to open it with a shaking hand. The smell of the camphor wood washed over him when it opened without a creak. Peeking inside, he saw a collection of wooden soldiers depicting Napoleon’s Armée du Nord, and no guitar shaped hole cut into the back of the trunk.

He knelt there long enough to compel Lister to hop out of his bunk and investigate the trunk himself. Rimmer covered his eyes with his trembling hand and Lister rested his steady one on his shoulder, politely ignoring the hologram’s hitched breaths.


	3. Segmentation Fault

“Five paces to your left, and twenty paces down,” Holly directed from the watch strapped to Lister’s wrist. Running as fast as he could while hunched as low as possible, Lister covered his nose and mouth with his shirt, trying to navigate the blazing corridors. He coughed and his eyes burned, but he kept heading forward, Kryten, Cat and Krissy just behind.

 _‘Rimmer, you smegpot, you’d better damn well have that antidote,_ ’ Lister thought as he rounded the corner. He brought the watch closer to his face. “I don’t see him, Hol. Are you sure– wait, there he is.” Lister spotted the prone figure behind chunks of burning plastic and collapsed girders. He and Kryten dragged him away from the flaming wreckage, almost missing the slip of paper that dropped out of the unconscious man’s hand. Kris picked it up, stuffing it in her pocket as they retreated from the inferno.

Lister looked up at Kryten as Kris handed him the formula. “Can you make the antidote?” The mechanoid nodded.

“I can synthesize a sample for Holly.” Kryten explained. “He’ll be able to distribute it via whatever is left of the ship’s sprinkler system. It should disperse it enough that–”

“Shut the smeg up and just do it!” Lister interrupted. His attention turned back to Rimmer. The back of his head and shirt were sticky with blood. His hands and knees were badly burned, and he wasn’t breathing. Lister’s fingers pressed at his throat, seeking a pulse he couldn’t find. “Come on, Rimmer, only the good die young, right?”

He pressed the heel of his hand on top of the other, pushing into the center of Rimmer’s chest. Lister counted thirty compressions before sealing his mouth over Rimmer’s, forcing two breaths into his lungs. Kris monitored Rimmer for changes that wouldn’t come. Cat sat back on his heels. He knew a dead body when he smelled one, but he let the other two fuss over him without comment.

Lister leaned over Rimmer once more when the other’s once hazel green eyes, now scabbed over and clouded with blood, snapped open to stare at Lister with an expression of betrayal.

Lister woke up sweating and the memory of burning flesh filling his nose. While re-acclimating to having the run of the ship and figuring out where to go from here, Lister slept restlessly. While not nightly, his dreams about Rimmer’s final moments were frequent, often embellished with guilt wracking little jabs. He rubbed his face and hopped out of his bunk, noticing the bottom bunk empty again.

Never exactly a morning person, unless going to bed in the AM counted, Lister had been trying to wake up earlier in order to catch Rimmer before he went off to do whatever he did these days. The memories of being in suffocating proximity to everyone else was still fresh for the hologram and he’d made himself almost as scarce as the Cat. Lister, on the other hand, was still missing Rimmer. The Rimmer he’d seen off in the hanger of Starbug.

It was no secret that things with the resurrected Rimmer had been less than ideal. All the years he’d spent building a relationship with him had been wiped clean. Zeroed out. That had hurt, and he felt resentful of the copy.

It may have sounded callous, but it had been easier when Rimmer had gone with the rest of the crew the first time. They hadn’t been friends. They hadn’t even been civil with each other. Lister had been indignant when Rimmer had been resurrected as a hologram instead of any of his friends. Their relationship really began after Rimmer had died. The fact that, after everything they’d been through, Lister would have to be stuck with the version of Rimmer who held nothing but contempt for him was a bitter pill to swallow.

Knowing something of Rimmer’s self esteem issues, he was also aware of how frustrating it was for this Rimmer to be constantly compared to the hologram and found wanting. It reminded him a lot of his Rimmer’s bitterness about Ace. In a sick way, Rimmer seemed destined to be in everyone’s shadow, including his own.

Lister saw the reactivation of Rimmer’s hologram as an opportunity to have his Rimmer back, and that made him feel guilty. Did that mean he was glad the other Rimmer was dead? He thought about the massive skull fracture, the burnt flesh, the scabbed, sightless eyes and felt guilt twist in his stomach like a knife. No one deserved that, especially someone whose biggest crime was being irritating. He hadn’t done well by that Rimmer and let him burn to death.

It was the reason he tried to get up early in the morning, the reason he tried to catch Rimmer before he left. Yes, he wanted to make up for lost time with the hologram, but he also wanted to try to make amends to the Rimmer he’d failed. That Rimmer was still somewhere inside the hologram, and Lister wanted to make sure he knew what it was like to have a friend.

 

Puffs of breath and the steady pounding of sneakers on metal decks accompanied the white noise hum of the ship’s various systems as Rimmer jogged down the corridor.

While generally loathing physical activity on principle, and only enduring it to prove how morally responsible he was for keeping fit, Rimmer honestly enjoyed the occasional run. These days it felt amazing to stretch his legs knowing he could run four hours without having to turn around once.

He tried to convince himself it was the novelty of free movement that compelled him to get up every morning before Lister, no matter how early Lister awoke, and put as big a distance between himself and everyone else left on board as possible.

Lister, suffocating him with his neediness. Asphyxiating him with his loneliness. He was all too aware that the plaited git had been trying to spend more time with him lately. A thought that made him pump his pale, skinny legs that much faster.

On his runs, Rimmer had always tried to clear his mind, but just beneath the surface of this pretense were all the old hang ups roiling like a turbulent sea. _Ocean grey_. It was hard to analyze why he wanted to flee from Lister when he was pretending that nothing was amiss.

 _‘Why on Io would I want to spend any amount of time with that curry brained chimpanzee?’_ A voice hissed in high dudgeon.

_‘He’s all you’ve got.’_

_‘I’d rather be dead.’_

_‘You are dead. You’re dead and you’re stuck with Lister. Get used to it.’_

Faster now, rounding a corner, faster. His white t-shirt was soaked with sweat and his breath was coming harsh and ragged. He grasped his side as a sharp pain blossomed beneath his ribs.

_‘What’s the worst thing he’s ever done to you?’_

Lise Yates. A trunk. A grave called Hope. Rimmer wiped his brow and tried to force his brain to indulge positive thoughts.

_'You might think you two were so buddy-buddy. I’m just a sad git who missed out on seeing the Real Lister. Now you are too.’_

It was getting harder to breathe and he stumbled a few times, but forced himself forward. His legs ached and his lungs burned. His throat burned. A fire. Smoke. Exploding pain at the base of his skull. Sweat. He couldn’t breathe as his airway was obstructed by something thick and solid. The stink of bodies pressing all around him.

 _‘Breathe through your nose,’_ a voice lanced with cruelty instructed. He felt his hands and knees pressing against the metal floor as he tried to inhale through his nose. Hot black smoke burned his nasal passages and his throat.

_‘Get out of this one, Mr. Gazpacho.’_

Hands grabbed at him from every direction, pulling his hair, tearing at his clothes. Rimmer tried to scramble away, cowering in a corner, battering the hands away. His head pounded so much he thought his brains we going to come splattering out of his nose and eyeballs.

“Rimmer, for god’s sake, you need to calm down!” Kochanski said in a panic. She’d seen the hologram wheezing down the corridor and assumed he’d over exerted himself exercising. She didn’t think he was really the physical type to begin with. When he’d face planted on the deck she went over to help him up. He’d come completely undone as soon as she touched him. Kochanski felt overwhelmed and confused as she watched Rimmer sob and tremble. “Holly!” she called frantically.

“Alright, then?” The phlegmatic computer asked as he appeared on one of the wall monitors.

“Holly, what’s happening to Rimmer?”

“Oh, that. Look’s like he’s having a flashback.”

“What should I do?” she asked, afraid to touch him again. He’d nearly hooked her in the jaw the first time.

“Not much you can do until he comes out of it,” Holly said passively. “I’ll try to redirect his systems out of the feedback loop. Stand by.”

Rimmer stopped shaking and crying and pitched forward on the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Whoops,” Holly said dully.

“What do you mean whoops?” Kochanski asked, kneeling next to the motionless hologram. “What did you do?”

“Looks like I crashed him.”


	4. Blue Screen of Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains possible spoilers for Series X, and depictions of graphic violence and sexual assault.

Rimmer lay on the bed of the medibay as the swingarm of the diagnostic scanner hovered over the hologram, Kryten at the computer terminal interpreting the readouts.

The Cat had taken a break from marking the vast lengths of his prowling grounds when he heard something interesting was happening in the upper decks. He was currently stretched languidly across one of the other beds in the medibay, looking bored. He yawned, exposing his gleaming fangs, twitching his nose.

“Is Non-Bud dead yet?” the Cat asked. “He’s got more lives than I do. I can’t keep getting my hopes up like this.”

“What happened?” Lister asked, ignoring him.

“He was running down the corridor and had some kind of fit,” Kochanski explained. “Holly said it was a flashback.”

“Flashback? Like post-traumatic stress or something?”

“I don’t know. Holly crashed him before he came out of it.”

“Of all the whacked out stuff we’ve gone through before, I don’t know what could be scrambling his eggs now,” Lister said, frowning.

“If I may suggest, Mr. Lister, sir,” Kryten said, interjecting. “In humanoids, stress isn’t like a muscle in that the more you endure, the more you can take. It’s more like a balloon. If you keep filling it, it will eventually explode.” The Cat seemed to brighten.

“Have I got myself a front row seat to Captain Hindenburg’s final voyage?”

“Haven’t you got an orifice to lick?” Lister growled irritably.

“What caused the crash?” Kochanski asked, trying to keep the conversation flowing in a more productive direction. “Was it whatever he was flashing back to, or was it whatever Holly did?”

“Hard to say at this point,” Kryten said, studying the monitor again. “Until we can be certain, it might be a good idea to quarantine off some potentially triggering memories.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea? Rimmer gets a bit tetchy about people messing with his memories.”

“It’s either that or running the risk of a cascade failure of his systems, at which point it will be impossible to restore his corrupted files.”

“Okay,” Lister sighed. “Do it.”

“Once we set up the firewalls, we can attempt to restart his system and work backwards from there, taking down the firewalls once we’ve determined those memory files are more or less safe.”

“How long is this gonna take?”

“It could take hours, days. Even weeks, depending on how many corrupted files there are,” Kryten said apologetically.

“Well, better get to it,” Lister said.

 

While Kryten began setting up the firewalls, Lister and Kochanski wandered up to the refectory to eat. The Rimmer that Lister had known left Red Dwarf before Kochanski had met him. Off to be a space hero, something that was still nigh on impossible for her to believe.

The way Lister had talked about him, he didn’t seem very much different from the Rimmer in her own dimension, but she imagined that some ineffable nuances had developed in their relationship that bonded them in ways that would be confusing and invisible to observers. Even to each other, most of the time. The first time Lister had opened up to her about Rimmer, he’d been surprised at how much he missed the hologram.

When she’d had a chance to meet his universe’s Rimmer in the literal flesh, she was less than impressed. Lister hadn’t spoken about it too often, but she was aware it was a crushing disappointment for him as well. When they rebooted him as a hologram, Lister had told her, “just wait. You’ll finally see _the_ Rimmer. _My_ Rimmer,” he said, parodying the way she would always refer to _her_ Dave.

So far she hadn’t seen too much of _his_ Rimmer, and neither had Lister. It was clear to Kochanski that the hologram had been aggressively avoiding everyone else since he’d been reactivated, acting like a caged animal every time he was compelled to endure their company for more than a few minutes at a time. She wasn’t exactly missing any version of Rimmer, but she couldn’t help feeling pangs of sympathy for Lister, whose hangdog expression reminded her of a puppy without its owner.

“Dave,” she finally said, after the both of them pushed their food around silently for too long. “Can I ask a question? If you don’t want to think about it right at the moment that’s fine.”

“If it’s about those crusty long johns you found in the freezer, they’re not mine,” he said.

“It’s not about that. It’s about Rimmer. About if… if we can’t correct his systems.” Her brow furrowed as she watched the tension settle around him.

“We’ll fix him.”

“I’m sure we will. But if we can’t, do you think you’ll be okay?” Lister looked up at her with an ambiguous expression.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” she said, trying to find a tactful way into this conversation. “It’s just that, over the years you’ve become quite, well, dependant on Rimmer. Emotionally, I mean.” Lister rolled his eyes but she continued before he could protest. “Initially it was important that he keep you sane, when you were alone on the ship. I know Rimmer’s your mate, and you wouldn’t be moping if he wasn’t so don’t even try to play semantics with me. But you’re not alone anymore.”

“What are you getting at?” he asked, trying to bite back the irritation.

“I’m just saying that, if we get him fixed, if we don’t get him fixed, if he ends up not being the exact same person you sent off to another dimension, it might be a good idea to try to be okay without him around. When he goes off into the diesel decks to catalog bolts for days at a time, you shouldn’t be waiting at the door for him to come back the whole time.”

“I don’t do that,” he said indignantly. “Do I?”

“You’re wearing a groove in your sleeping quarters. Your happiness can’t depend on someone else.”

Lister sat back in his seat in pensive silence for a while. For years he’d pined after Kristine Kochanski, even after she died. He’d dreamed about turning on her hologram and spilling his guts to her, but he never did. Even after he found the hologram projection disks, even after he’d found out her disk was in Rimmer’s box. He had always assumed if somehow he could be with her in any incarnation, the pieces would fit together and he’d feel whole again.

When the sky had opened up and handed him a living, breathing Kochanski, he discovered after a few seconds of bliss that life was more complicated than that. Aside from the fact that she had resented him for not being Her Dave, just as Lister had resented his cellmate for not being His Rimmer, she had her own hang ups and motives, her own direction and plans for her future. She had a life independent of his mercurial emotions.

Sitting with her in the canteen, he was happy she was here, but she didn’t make him happy. Like everyone else, he’d have to find his own happiness himself.

Maybe he knew that instinctively all those years ago, and maybe that’s why he’d never replaced Rimmer’s hologram with hers, despite all the chances he’d had to do so. Like his impossible search for His Kochanski, maybe it was time to stop looking for His Rimmer.

 

Eventually Lister wandered back to the medibay where Rimmer was still laying unconscious, the room dimly lit.

“How’s it coming, Kryten?”

“I’ve completely the quarantine process,” the mechanoid reported. “It took a bit longer than expected, as there were quite a few areas that needed to be sterilized.” Listed didn’t doubt it, recalling their time tromping around the hologram’s psyche on that psi-moon.

_'Right at the Swamp of Despair, going straight past the Wood of Humiliation and a hard left at the Chasm of Hopelessness.'_

Kryten typed in a string of commands and Rimmer’s eyes opened slowly. His expression was vacant for a moment before looking around with a low groan.

“What happened?”

“You had some kind of fit.”

“Fit?”

“Yeah, some kind of flashback or something.” Rimmer groaned again, massaging his temples.

“I feel like someone’s put my head through a press drill and filled it with cement.”

“Kryten had to put up a bunch of bumpers in your brain, so you can’t access certain memories.” Rimmer’s nostrils flared irately as he tried to sit up. Lister gently held him down by the shoulders.

“Why the smeg did he do that?”

“One of your memories might be causing a glitch. We’re gonna go through and try to debug your system.”

“Mr. Rimmer, sir, I’m going to put you in a semi-hypnotic state while we go through the memories.”  
  
“You’re going to poke around my memories? I don’t think so, Bogbot from Hell.”

“Look, Rimmer, unless you want your file to get accidentally wiped, we have to go through and look for a problem,” Lister explained. Rimmer glared, but relented.

“Fine.”

Lister watched, almost expecting to see Kryten pull out a pocket watch to swing in front of Rimmer’s eyes, or tell him to start counting back from ten. Instead the mechanoid input a series of commands at the computer terminal. The vacant expression returned on Rimmer’s face, his eyelids closed half way, and every simulated muscle in his body relaxed.

“Patching in now,” Kryten reported. “Opening the first file. This one appears comparatively benign.”

The video screen above Rimmer’s bed began playing a scene of a lush looking garden. A man who looked remarkably like Rimmer wearing a pair of coveralls with dirt covered knees approached, hands behind his back.

“’Ello there, Arnie,” he said in a nasally, almost Essex accent. Not an Ionian native. “What are you doing in those bushes, eh?”

“I was playing hide-and-seek with Frank and Howard,” a small voice replied. “It’s been almost six hours and they still haven’t found me,” he said with a touch of pride.

' _I was always a master at hide and seek, it’s not a gift you lose.'_

“Atta boy, eh-eh.” The man reached over and patted the boy’s head. “I have something for you, lad.” He brought his other hand forward to show Rimmer a small potted plant. A pale orange succulent with vibrant red tips. “That’s a Jovian Echeveria succulent.”

“Thank you, Dungo,” Rimmer said, tiny fingers stroking the soft, fat leaves.

“You didn’t think I’d forget your birthday did you, miladdo? Now go on, I have to finish putting in this planter.”

The boy wandered down the path, eyes fixed on the bright plant. He turned a corner running into another boy who looked to be about six years old. Cold blue eyes glared down at him.

“Oy, watch your step, Bonehead,” he hissed. An older boy could be seen in the background, and the younger boy looked back at him to make sure he was watching. He looked back at Rimmer and smiled. “What’s that, then?” he asked, pointing to the plant.

“A Jovian Ec…Eche…Echeveria succulent.”

“A sucky-what? Can I see?” Rimmer handed him the plant, and the boy immediately threw it on the ground, shattering the pot.

“Howard, don’t!” the boy cried, as he was shoved to the ground. The boy in the background laughed and Howard stomped on the plant, mashing the leaves into the gravel.

Lister looked down at Rimmer while he listened to the boy cry on the video screen. Rimmer’s distant expression had not changed.

“Well, that one appears safe,” Kryten said brightly. Lister sighed. This was gonna be a long night.

The next video was of a sand pit. Small hands held a plastic tank, and the sand pit was dotted with green and tan coloured plastic soldiers.

“Tchu-tchu-tchu-tchu,” the boy imitated engine sounds as he wheeled his little tank over the sand. “Pshoo, pshoo.” He scooted the toy over an odd lump in the sand. Something in the background caught his attention and he left to investigate.

Kneeling down next to a shrub, he jumped back as a squirrel fled its hiding place. Kneeling down again he reached under the shrub to grab a red rubber ball. Heading back to his sand pit, he stopped midway to toss the ball in the pit. It bounced on the lump in the sand and a deafening explosion propelled Rimmer across the garden, along with flaming chunks of wood and debris.

“What the smeg in hell?” Lister said, jumping in his seat.

“Ah, one of his brother’s pranks,” Kryten explained.

The screen, which had been fixed on the domed Ionian sky for a few moments, panned down to observe two chunks of splintered wood sticking out of Rimmer’s left shoulder. Screeching and shouting could be heard in the background.

“What on Io have you done?” an aggressive voice boomed. The screen filled with the face of a balding, mustached man, purple with rage. “Did you take that from my gun cabinet, you thieving little _bastard?_ Unlike you, it’s irreplaceable!” The man straightened up, assessing his garden. “Look what you’ve done, Arnold.” He looked down again in disgust. “You can’t even get yourself blown up properly.”

Rolling through the footage of Rimmer’s childhood was enraging to Lister at first, and it eventually became exhausting and numbing. He watched Rimmer’s face, which remained placid for the most part, every once in a while giving a pinch or a twitch.

Kryten monitored his systems closely. One of his readings spiked as Rimmer’s mother appeared on the screen, looking into it with loathing and said, “if you could sue sperm, I’d sue the sperm that made you.” Rimmer’s brow knitted and he balled his hands into fists. Kryten suggested this would be a good place to take a break and Lister left the room for a smoke. When he finished, Rimmer’s face returned to the absent expression.

The video screen displayed an empty dinner plate. It panned up to see two nervous looking boys, about 11 and 15, wolfing down their food, hunched over their plates as though guarding something precious. Between them stood Mr. Rimmer, staring down at his youngest son with a plutonian gaze.

“Given the initial tangential deviation of theta/pi, what is the chord subtended by fractional derivative of the third quotient of theta?” Silence. “I’m waiting.”

“Please,” a hoarse voice whispered.

“Excuse me?”

“Please, I don’t know. I’m so hungry.” He looked down from his father, eyes slipping closed. A loud crack made him jump in his seat as his father slammed a riding crop on the table. Both the other boys trembled, trying to finish the last of their food.

“Given the initial tangential deviation of theta/pi, what is the chord subtended by fractional derivative of the third quotient of theta?”

“Seven?” he ventured tentatively.

“You’re not even trying, are you, Arnold? That’s why you get to watch your brother’s eat. A person can at least a month without food. Are you trying to test theory, Arnold?”

“No,” he croaked.

“No, what, Arnold?”

“No, sir.”

“Given the initial tangential deviation of theta/pi, what is the chord subtended by fractional derivative of the third quotient of theta?”

“I don’t know god damn it,” he cried. His older brothers froze. The hairs on Lister’s neck and arms stood on end.

“Go to your room, Arnold,” Mr. Rimmer instructed with an eerie calm. The boy shuffled from his seat and trudged up a staircase to his bedroom. He peered into the full length mirror hanging from his closet door. Lister was appalled. Rimmer looked about ten going on eighty. His face was pale and gaunt, eyes and cheeks sunken and hollow. His lips were dry and cracked.

The thudding sounds of footsteps could be heard approaching, and Lister jumped as something gripped his wrist. Rimmer’s shaking hand had grabbed him, his eyes wide in terror. Lister looked over at Kryten.

“I think we can ride this one out,” Kryten said, typing quickly at his console. Lister looked back at Rimmer and adjusted his grip so he was holding Lister’s hand. It squeezed harder as the bedroom door opened and the boy was yanked from where he was standing and thrown to the ground.

“Arnold Judas Rimmer,” the man spat in an apoplectic rage. “Have you forgotten your place in this household?” The man held aloft a manila envelope. “F’s in all your exams, bottom of the pile. That’s where you’re at, you little _bastard_.” Mr. Rimmer flung the envelope at the boy. “And you have the audacity to speak back to me at the dinner table?”

Mr. Rimmer raised his other hand, holding the riding crop, and brought it cracking down on Rimmer’s arms as the boy tried to protect his face. He struck the screaming boy several times in quick succession. Rimmer twisted onto his stomach, trying to curl himself into a ball. Mr. Rimmer brought the crop down at the base of his spine and beat at his kidneys. When the boy tried to squirm away he was grabbed by his wrist and pulled back beneath his father. Rimmer jerked and his father pulled, followed by a sickening pop and snap.

“Please, father, please!” Rimmer’s cracked voice begged. Lister could see Rimmer’s face in the mirror, puffy red and streaked with tears and blood. He looked down at the man gripping his hand. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his face mirrored the anguish on the boy. There was a beeping on one of the monitors.

“Kryten,” Lister said in a warning tone.

“We’re almost through this one, sir,” Kryten said.

Mr. Rimmer released his son, whose arm flopped awkwardly from behind his back. His shoulder looked dislocated, and his arm was swollen, a bump jutting out in the middle of his pencil thin forearm.

Mr. Rimmer took a deep breath and smoothed back what hair was left on the top of his head.

“I hope the next time you want to talk back to me, you’ll remember this, Arnold.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lister breathed as the screen went blank. Kryten hovered uncomfortably at the console.

“I think this would be a good place to pause our session for the day.”

 

Lister’s nerves were frayed as he escorted Rimmer to their sleeping quarters. Kryten had given the hologram a kind of electronic sedative. Lister sat him down in his bunk and ordered a tea and a lager from the dispenser. He handed Rimmer the tea. The hologram held the warm cup in his hand and continued to stare into space.

“God, Rimmer,” Lister said, sitting next to him. “What the smeg is wrong with your family? We haven’t even gotten to the teens yet.” Lister had absolutely no desire to watch a spotty faced Rimmer fumble unsuccessfully through teenage sexual humiliation. “We haven’t even gotten to whatever’s jamming up your system.” He cracked open the can and took a long sip.

“You don’t have to stay,” Rimmer said in a dull monotone that made Lister slightly uneasy, reminding him of a certain Mr. Flibble. Lister wondered if that was going to show up in the scan as well.

“Do you want me to be scarce?” Lister asked. “I guess it’s pretty private, and I don’t need to stick me nose in it, if you don’t want me to.” Rimmer was silent for a while.

“I didn’t know it was going to be that bad. And I don’t know how much worse it’s going to get, since I can’t remember what those blocked memories are.” He looked down at the tea as though just realizing it was in his hand. He took a sip. “I felt like I was there, back on Io. But somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I wasn’t alone. I knew I was still on Red Dwarf. I think it was helpful, knowing someone else was there,” he admitted quietly.

Lister watched him for a moment before cautiously placing his hand on Rimmer’s back. When the hologram didn’t flinch away, he started rubbing comfortingly behind his shoulders. Rimmer sighed and leaned over, resting his head on Lister’s shoulder, and Lister pulled him into a side hug

“We’ll figure this out, man,” Lister said.

 

Their next session was as painful and awkward as Lister imagined it would be. One moment in particular when Rimmer’s uncle Frank, more than slightly drunk, wandered into his nephew’s room to stick his tongue down his throat. In spite of the young teen’s struggling, Frank didn’t realize his mistake until he reached into Rimmer’s pants to grab a handful of male genitalia.

“Sorry Arnie,” Frank’s alcoholic breath huffed in Rimmer’s face. He gave his nephew a friendly pat on the cheek. “Easy to make a mistake with such a girly face like yours, eh?”

It wasn’t until Mr. Rimmer broke his wrist and fractured his collar bone that the 14 year old Arnold finally divorced his parents. Lister assumed things would get moderately better from there, until he learned that Mr. Rimmer ended up teaching one of his classes at Io Polytech. While legally prohibited from physically touching his divorced son, he took every opportunity to humiliate him in front of his peers. His harassment became so bad that Rimmer eventually dropped out of Io Polytech and transferred to Saturn Technical College.

Events seemed to taper off after that, eventually leading into familiar territory for Lister. Something he hadn’t realized he’d been dreading until it was almost on him. Since the computer had video recording of everything on the ship, it was able to sync up with Rimmer’s memories, providing more than the first person perspective.

Predictably there were Rimmer’s astronavigation failures, but what Lister really didn’t want to dredge through was the rough patches he’d had with the living Rimmer, which seemed to encompass every waking moment they were around each other.

There were a few cringe worthy run-ins, but not as many as he thought there’d be. He’d anticipated the gazpacho soup incident, which seemed to trigger Rimmer almost as much as his father breaking his arm. Lister didn’t pretend he understood, but he’d made a promise to Rimmer not to heckle him about the soup, and Lister kept his promises.

After a break they started diving into post-death memories, something that made Lister squirm a little as well. There was the Lise Yates incident. Erasing their memories hadn’t worked the first time. It didn’t help that he and the Cat had broken their feet and left some pretty blatant clues laying around, but they hadn’t tried it again. That disaster was part of the reason Lister hadn’t suggested just deleting whichever memory was causing the glitch in the first place. But if it kept throwing Rimmer into system failure, they might not have a choice.

They suffered through the incident on the ice planet and Lister learned that Rimmer had tried very hard to convince Kryten to make Rocky Mountain Oysters out of him.

It was odd and viscerally sickening to watch Rimmer explode in the cargo bay after he accidentally smashed a box of mines. He thought about what could have happened to the kid in the sand pit. It was odd because he only had the vaguest memories of the incident. Something to do with some time dilation causality smeg. Neither he nor Rimmer “remembered” that he’d been alive, even though he altered the timeline, he just happened to not be dead at the time. Which didn’t last very long.

Several things played out on the video screen that were embarrassing for both of them to relive, but one thing that Lister hadn’t been a party to was Rimmer’s time aboard the holoship Enlightenment. Rimmer had been stubbornly tightlipped about the incident, and Lister had never found out exactly why he’d resigned his commission. He’d never mentioned Nirvanah Crane. The circumstances of Rimmer’s resignation broke Lister’s already over-sentimental heart.

There was surprisingly little of the Rimmerworld event. Kryten had explained to them about Rimmer’s stress disorder. Apparently while imprisoned among his clones, he’d suffered some kind of pseudo-aneurysm, sending his system into a safe sleep mode. Essentially an electronic coma.

“I believe this event directly relates to our current predicament,” Kryten said.

“How do you figure?” Lister asked. “Is that what’s causing the glitch?”

“Not exactly. But I believe it facilitated the glitch occurring. This electronic aneurysm began to rapidly fragment his data files. Mr. Rimmer’s light bee detected the deterioration and shut down most of his systems to save them from corruption.”

“So why is he malfunctioning now? He went for almost two years after Rimmerworld without incident, as far as I know.” The pit of Lister’s stomach soured as he thought of Ace. Had he sent His Rimmer out to fight evil in space with corrupted software? What if he glitched while fighting Simulants or aggressive GELFs, or trying to slingshot out of a planet’s atmosphere?

“When we brought Mr. Rimmer back, I was able to defrag much of his systems, in addition to his own failsafes circumventing further corruption of his operating systems. However, I believe his software is having difficulty coping with the updates to his memory. The nanobots reconstructed Red Dwarf’s old soft light hologram technology, which has been essentially grafted onto Legion’s far superior hard light technology.”

“Glazing, Kryten, glazing,” Lister said, struggling to see where the technobabble was going. “What’s the bottom line here?”

“Mr. Rimmer’s mind may not be backwards compatible.”

Lister sighed and Kryten continued probing Rimmer’s memories. After this point things started getting glitchy. A memory cut into the video screen like a pirate video hacking into a station feed. It took Lister a minute to figure out what he was looking at. He realized Rimmer was looking into a camera, wearing a lavender boiler suit. This was their prison line up.

“I believe we’re getting closer to our culprit,” Kryten said.

The screen showed Ackerman standing above the prisoners, welcoming them to the tank. Lister’s stomach started a slow roll and he felt heat prickling his face as he realized what was coming up. He saw himself sneak up behind Rimmer and pour the phial of the sexual magnetism virus on Rimmer’s shoulder. All of it. Lister had snuck away before it had taken effect. He’d been in his bunk, laughing his ass off, assuming Rimmer would be felt up a bit before the guards started knocking heads in.

A meaty hand gripped Rimmer’s shoulder, and the Rimmer laying in the medibay went white, breaking out into a cold sweat. The pupils of his eyes were blown out, glassy black with only a sliver of green visible. On screen, Rimmer saw the hungry look in the eyes of the prisoners and tried to bolt. Several sets of eager hands grabbed him, pulling at his suit and his hair, pulling him into their squirming fray.

Lister watched for the arrival of the prison guards, praying for them to come. What he saw instead was Rimmer forced to the ground as strips of his suit were torn off, exposing his pale skin. Dirty nails dragged angry red marks across it in the haste to strip him. When he couldn’t get free he cried out for help and no one came. Lister could see a couple of the guards in the background watching with amusement on their ugly faces. Lister felt sick.

Rimmer’s wrists were pinned to the ground by one man while another unzipped himself and straddled Rimmer from behind. Hands the size of shovels spread Rimmer’s ass cheeks apart and the fat leaking head of his cock pressed against the small opening. The man shifted his hips and sunk the mushroom head past the tight ring of flesh, groaning as Rimmer screamed though clenched teeth. Strong hands grappled his hips, locking him in place as he pushed deeper, inch by inch until he was fully engulfed, his painfully throbbing cock squeezed by the walls of Rimmer’s insides, tearing and splitting to accommodate the foreign girth.

As Rimmer lay on the bed, his body was rigid and his breath was shallow, seeming borderline catatonic.

The man lay on top of Rimmer, gripping one of his shoulders with one hand, and covering his mouth with the other before pulling his hips back and jerking them forward, fucking Rimmer with raw breathless need. As he thrust into him, he forced his two middle fingers into Rimmer’s mouth, pushing them as far down his throat as he could, as though needing to get as much of himself inside Rimmer as possible. Two more desperate thrusts and pulses of hot fluid gushed out of him, seeping out of Rimmer’s ravaged orifice with liberal amounts of blood.

Without a second’s relief, someone else grabbed a fistful of Rimmer’s hair, yanking him up to his knees. Vice like fingers forced his jaw open and another cock pushed into his mouth, the bitter head sliding against the hard palate of his mouth and down the soft wet depth of his throat. Rimmer gagged and choked, trying to pull away, but the strong hand kept his head pressed against the man’s hips. Coarse curls of hair tickled his nose and his tongue pressed against the throbbing vein on the underside of his cock. Rimmer’s face was tear stained and red, turning slightly bluish as his throat closed around the cock fucking his mouth.

“Breath through your nose,” a voice lanced with cruelty instructed. Within a few more strokes, Rimmer was gagging up come, the white fluid dribbling down his chin. Teeth and nails raked across his soft skin. As he was bent over and fucked from behind, rough hands reached around to squeeze and pull at his cock, trying to encourage an erection. It wasn’t arousing and it became incredibly painful as the sensitive organ became swollen and chafed.

Lister was out of his seat, pacing around the medibay cursing as video continued to show Rimmer brutally ravaged by fifteen prisoners. As he lay on the bed, Rimmer’s face was scrunched in agony and his hands were balled into shaking fists. Kryten’s computer terminal began shrill beeping, and the code on the screen went from green to red.

“Kryten, you have to stop the session,” Lister said hotly. The mechanoid input the exit commands and the video screen went black. Rimmer was still shaking.

“I think we’ve found the source,” Kryten said quietly. Lister approached Rimmer cautiously.

“Rimmer, man,” he said in a tight whisper. He reached out to gently touch the hologram’s trembling hand. As soon as he made contact, Rimmer’s eyes shot open and he snatched his hand away. He looked up at Lister with a gut wrenching mix of horror and betrayal.

“How… how could you do this to me?” he asked. Lister didn’t know what to say. He had no defense.

 _‘You’d better have a good reason for this, Lister. Why’d you do it?_ ’

_‘I thought it would be a laugh.’_

For the first time in his life, Lister could identify with Rimmer’s self-loathing. What did he expect was going to happen? Being trapped inside his own skin with Rimmer looking at him like the monster he was, he felt disgusted with himself. He felt like every nasty thing Rimmer had ever called him was suddenly true.

“I’m sorry,” he said weakly. It sounded pathetic even to him. He remembered apologizing indignantly after it had happened, when Rimmer had refused to speak to him. He hadn’t thought it had gone that far. He hadn’t thought it was a big deal, and he’d told Rimmer as much.

_‘You’re still not talking to me? It’s unbelievably childish, you know.’_

“Get away from me,” Rimmer said in hushed horror. Lister stood there with his mouth hanging open, wanting to somehow take everything back. Kryten, who was still monitoring the hologram’s systems stepped between the two men, putting a hand on Lister’s shoulder.

“I think it would be best if you left now, Mr. Lister, sir,” he said in an apologetic voice. “Now that I’ve found the source of the fault, I believe I can stabilize it.”

Lister looked at Kryten desperately, then looked back at Rimmer. Rimmer was looking at him with the same expression he’d looked at his father after the man had broken his arm. Lister wanted to throw himself out of an airlock. He settled for the bar.


	5. Fatal Exception

Kristine Kochanski entered the dimly lit karaoke bar where she was informed Lister could be found. Tables and chairs were strewn about the floor, along with fag butts and empty bottles. She spotted Lister sitting at the last table standing, his booted feet propped on the table while he leaned back, his chair balanced on the back two legs. He looked pissed out of his head. She wandered over to him, pulling a chair up to the table.

“I take it the session went without a hitch,” she probed with gentle sarcasm. Kochanski had expected Lister to look at her with patient irritation, a sloppy drunken grin, or, depending on how much he’d had to drink, right on past her. She hadn’t expected the look of abject despair etched into his red rimmed eyes. “Oh my god,” she said. “Did he… is he…?”

“He’s still functioning. Kryten found the glitch and is working on it now.”

“So what’s the problem?” Lister looked away from her, trying to sniffle casually. He was quiet for a while, not trusting the stability of his voice. He shook his head.

“I did something horrible,” he finally said. He tipped his chair back on all four legs and leaned forward on the table, rubbing his face with his hands.

“What happened?” she asked.

How could he tell her? She didn’t even know and he still couldn’t look at her. How could he confess the worst thing he’d ever done to the man that, for better or worse, had become the most important person in his life? He had sat there for two days, audience to the horror show of Rimmer’s life, things that had sickened him to his core, and in the end he had been the catalyst to the worst day of Rimmer’s wretched life. A life he had inevitably let end in smoke and flames.

_‘No way are you part of me.’_

_‘Oh yes he is. He’s the little boy who used to pull the legs off insects. He’s the little boy who on a hot summer’s day held a magnifying glass to his best friend’s neck and_ watched him burn _.’_

_‘He’s the part of you who wants all his friends to fail.’_

_‘He’s cruel! He’s selfish! He thinks terrible things!’_

_‘But he kills. I’m not capable of that.’_

Lister was learning the horrors of which he was capable of and it was rotting his soul. He had always prided himself on being a good man. A man of moral courage. What a god damn phony. He hadn’t realized he was crying until Kochanski pulled him into a hug. He knew she’d be kicking his testicles into his body cavity if she’d known what he’d done, and he would have deserved it ten times over. Fifteen.

“I’m so sorry,” he babbled. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this.”

“It’ll be okay,” she said automatically. “We’ll figure it out.”

 

When Lister eventually stumbled back to their quarters, even through his drunken stupor he noticed something amiss. Rimmer’s things were absent. His posters, his newspaper clippings, his trunk, his blue tack. Everything was gone. He turned as he heard Kryten’s metallic steps down the corridor.

“Where’s all Rimmer’s stuff?” he asked, already knowing the answer. The mechanoid’s hands fussed anxiously.

“Mr. Rimmer asked me to move them to different quarters, sir.”

“Different quarters where?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that. He’s ordered me not to tell you.” Lister looked down at his boots.

“Is he… gonna be alright?”

“I believe I’ve managed to compensate the backwards compatibility issue for now. I’ll be conferencing with Holly to discuss updating the ship’s hologramatic software to circumvent issues like this in the future.” Lister knew Kryten was hedging around the question he was really asking.

“Why didn’t he say anything to me?”

“Sir?”

“While we were in the tank? He never… I mean he seemed fine. Annoyed, but otherwise…”

“According to Mr. Rimmer’s medical files, he was given a regimen of synaptic blockers after he was admitted to sickbay, obscuring his recollection of the event. A certain level of morale is required to keep working prisoners functional.”

“Do you mean to tell me that they gave him memory drugs to keep him working in the tank?”

“Essentially, yes.”

What the hell kind of conspiracy level bullshit organization had he been working for all this time? The JMC was just supposed to be a mining company.

“Does he know that?

“He does now, sir.”

“Where is he? I need to talk to him, Kryten.” Lister pleaded. Kryten cringed.

“Oh, I’m sorry sir! But I was given a direct order! I have to obey it.”

“Smeg!” Lister said, kicking the wall. “Wait, you said he ordered you not to tell _me_ , right? Did he order you not to tell Kochanski or the Cat?”

“Well, not specifically…”

“Kryten, I want you to tell Kochanski where Rimmer’s at.”

“Sir, I’m not sure…

“It’s an order, Kryten.” Both Lister and the mechanoid looked surprised. Lister had never given Kryten an order before. He had always insisted Kryten was no one’s servant, that he was his own man, and in spite of Rimmer attempting to pull rank all the time, everyone left on Red Dwarf was equal. “I’m sorry, Kryten. But it’s really important.”

“Yes, sir.” Kryten headed to find Kochanski.

 

Rimmer sat on the bottom bunk of his old quarters on P Deck, surrounded by the unpainted grey steel bulkheads. _Military grey_. His elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, he tried to silence his turbulent mind.

_‘What about trust? What about fidelity? What simple basic honest friendship?’_

_‘Friendship? Do you know how many people I’ve met in my life I can count as friends? True friends? None. I got burnt once and I learned my lesson. Don’t trust anybody. Friends are only friends when it suits them.’_

Would that he’d taken that lesson to heart the way he’d claimed. He’d known that betrayal and humiliation loomed over every relationship. It had been ingrained into every inch of his DNA since he’d been born. How could he have been stupid enough to have let his guard down? How had old Iron Balls let the façade crack? For Lister, of all people. He was probably fortunate that he and Nirvanah were forced to separate. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to take the heartache. Even today his chest constricted painfully at the thought of her.

_‘It is considered the height of bad manners to refuse an offer of sexual coupling.’_

Fifteen sweating, pulsing, hungry bodies forcing themselves onto him, inside of him, spilling themselves into him like tissue by the bedside.

_‘Well. People have always complimented my on my good manners.’_

Rimmer wanted to be sick. He still couldn’t believe it had happened. Not even Lister could be that vindictive. He went over the events in his mind over and over again.

 _‘It’s not as if you didn’t have it coming,’_ the faintest whisper hissed. _‘It isn’t as though you didn’t deserve it. Not even Lister’s patience is infinite. It was only a matter of time before you drove him to it.’_ It was true, wasn’t it?

_‘You’re a cheating weaselly lowlife scum bucket, with all the charm and social grace of a pubic louse.’_

Why would anyone stay loyal to that? _Useless._ Why couldn’t he do anything right? _Useless._ He’d driven the last man on earth crashing through the gates of his moral codes. _Useless._ Rimmer hugged his arms around his torso, laying his forehead on his knees.

Lister kept trying to get rid of him, but he kept coming back, like a boomerang no one wanted. No wonder he’d sent the other Rimmer off to be Ace. He had probably laughed himself stupid, thinking of old Acehole meeting the business end of a plasma rifle. This time the message was received loud and clear.

Rimmer jumped at the sound of knocking outside the cold metal door. He froze, hoping it would go away. He knew he couldn’t trust that bogbot to keep his stupid rubber head shut.

“Rimmer,” Kochanski’s voice called from the other side. What does she want? “Are you in there?” The door slid open and she peered inside. The hologram glared at her.

“No, I’m afraid I’m not in. I might be back later though,” he said with flat irritation. She walked in and closed the door.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Tickity-boo.”

“You don’t look well.”

“And you could lose a few pounds,” he sniped, hoping she’d take the hint and leave.

Kochanski sighed heavily, trying to keep her temper even. This was going to be all up hill. She wouldn’t have bothered, and had been the one to advise Lister to give the hologram some space to begin with, but Lister’s distress had been too acute to ignore.

“Look,” she said. “I don’t know what happened between you and Dave…”

“Don’t you?” Rimmer spat, launching himself from his seat to pace around the bunk room.

“No, I don’t.”

“The four amigos upstairs haven’t been having a good rollicking laugh at the Prankster Prince’s hilarious antics?” The rage started to burn away the chill of despair.

“Rimmer, Dave had come to me in tears, begging me to find you so he could talk to you.”

“I’m already dead, what more could he possibly want from me?”

“Dave doesn’t want you dead, Rimmer. He was devastated when we couldn’t save you from the fire.”

“Was he really?” He asked, sarcasm dripping with poison. Kochanski blinked, slightly taken aback. Was this the man that Lister needed so desperately in his life? Even the Rimmer in the tank hadn’t been so full of piss and vinegar.

“Why do you think he brought you back online? Why do you think he keeps trying to follow you around the damn ship all the time?”

“I can only assume it’s to keep reassuring himself that I’m still a dirty deadie.” Kochanski flinched at the slur, staring incredulously at the hologram.

“What happened between you two?” Rimmer arched an eyebrow at her.

“He really hasn’t told you.”

“No.”

Rimmer’s lips were pinched and his nostrils flared. He folded his hands behind his back and continued to pace in the small room.

“I assume you recall the sexual magnetism virus.” Kochanski shuddered, remembering the brief moment where all she wanted in this life was Rimmer’s body.

“Yes.”

“And that I didn’t give it to Hollister, but instead gave it to Lister.” His hands clenched into tight fists behind his back. “I gave it to Lister. And he poured it on me. All of it. He poured it on me, and smegged off to his cell, laughing his stupid gerbil face off while I was surrounded by those deranged animals who–” Rimmer cut himself off short as he felt his voice begin to crack. His eyes were alight and shiny and Kochanski felt a chill settle in the pit of her stomach.

“You were raped?” she asked in a low tone. Rimmer looked back at her with sharp green eyes.

“Spot on. So you can imagine how open I am to having tea and bickies with the last man alive.”

Kochanski didn’t know what to say, so she left.

 

Lister was sitting at the table in his bunkroom, nursing another beer when he saw Kochanski come in. He barely had time to register the dangerous anger in her eyes before she slapped him across the table. He hadn’t been expecting it and tumbled out of his chair.

“How could you?” she screamed. “How could you?” Lister touched his finger to his nose, wiping away blood.

“I’m a stupid dribbling brain dead moron,” Lister said, not bothering to get up from the floor. “I didn’t think it would go so far! I didn’t think the guards would sit back and let it happen!”

“That’s the trouble, you didn’t think!” Kochanski didn’t even like Rimmer and she was fuming. “I don’t even want to look at you right now,” she said, running her hand through her hair.

“Well that makes it unanimous,” Lister said. “I messed up. I don’t know how to fix this.”

“I don’t know if you can fix this,” she said, shaking her head.

“Where is he bunking?”

“No. I’m not telling you that.”

“Krissy, you don’t know what he’s like. You can’t just give him space and hope he figures things out, he’s going to hole up and fester. I guarantee you he’s digging a grave in his psyche right now.”

“And who gave him the shovel?” Kochanski hissed. Lister couldn’t say anything. He picked himself up off the floor and grabbed a tissue to wipe his nose with.

“Please,” he said in a broken tone. “If you won’t tell me where he is, please try to get him out of his own head. He doesn’t deserve to do this alone.”

 

When Rimmer returned breathless and sweating from his jog, he found Kochanski waiting for him in his quarters. Glowering, he ignored her and yanked a towel from the rack to wipe his face.

“What are you doing here?” he finally asked.

“Waiting for you.”

“Well here I am. You can go now,” he said, gesturing to the door. She didn’t move and he didn’t expect her to. Rimmer wiped the back of his neck and stepped into the bunk’s shower room to clean up. Kochanski was still sitting at the desk when he finished. “What do you want?”

“Rimmer… Arnold. I just wanted to see how you were doing, is all.” He eyed her suspiciously as he dried off the wet curls on his head.

“You outrank me,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“You outrank me. You could shut me off and have anyone else as ship’s hologram instead. Why haven’t you replaced me?”

“I don’t want to replace you,” she said, surprised. The thought had honestly never occurred to her. She thought it would have been terribly bad manners to begin with. While it was technically true she outranked Rimmer, it wasn’t her universe and Rimmer was this Dave’s companion. “I want to help you.”

“Help me?” He parroted in a high, indignant voice. “Why?”

“Because bad things happened to you, Arnold, but that doesn’t make you a bad person.” Rimmer wanted to give her a clipped, snippy retort, but he didn’t have one at the ready. “I know it doesn’t help, but Dave didn’t mean for things to go so far.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t. And I don’t care. He could have intended to make me Pope of deep space and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference,” he said, throwing his towel on the floor angrily.

“I didn’t mean to defend him. What he did was indefensible. I just meant to say that, whatever you decide to do, he doesn’t hold any malice against you. If you wanted to talk to him.”

“I have nothing to say to him.”

“That’s fair,” she said, standing up. “I just wanted to let you know that if you needed to talk to someone, you have my ear.”

 

Kochanski returned the next day around the same time. Rimmer returned from his jog, glared at her, showered, and she made small talk for a few minutes before leaving. They repeated this ritual for a week. It had been a chore at first, but Lister had been drinking himself into a deeper and deeper depression as the days went on, and going down into the lower decks had been a reprieve from that.

“Is this the only thing you do down here?” she asked. “Run around the decks, shower, read? Is that the whole agenda?” Rimmer glared at her as he wiped the water from his face. “Is this how you spend eternity?”

“Well I already alphabetized the aphabetii spaghetti,” he said, tying the soft cloth belt of his blue bathrobe tighter around his narrow waist. Kochanski wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not.

He sat next to Kochanski, drumming his long thin fingers on the table. She reached out to still them. As her hand touched his, he snatched it quickly away.

“Don’t touch,” he said breathlessly, his eyes flashing with fear.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. She could practically see his pulse beating in his neck. “I’m not going to hurt you, Arnold.”

“Just keep your mitts to yourself,” he said, crossing his arms.

“Do you believe that I might hurt you?” she asked gently.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“I promise, I’m not going to hurt you.” She held her small hand out to him. He looked at it for a moment before sighing through his nose. Rimmer uncrossed his arms and hesitantly took her hand. She put the other on top of his, discreetly taking his pulse, which was beating at humming bird pace. “Is this okay?” She watched him work his rigid jaw.

“Fine,” he said tightly. She held his hand until he started to calm down. Lister had mentioned that Rimmer wasn’t much of a toucher. Even after he’d acquired his hard light drive, he’d never been one for back slapping, shoulder touching, or hugging. He would always salute in lieu of hand shaking. It had sounded to Kochanski that the only kind of touching Rimmer experienced while was alive was either overtly violent or sexual. Or both.

“You know, it’s okay for friends to touch each other,” she said. He looked at her skeptically.

“I’ll keep that in mind if I acquire any.”

“I’d like to be your friend, Arnold.” His suspicion had not wavered an inch. “Can I give you a hug?”

“A hug?”

“Yeah. It’s okay for friends to casually touch each other, Arnold. It doesn’t always have to lead somewhere else. It doesn’t always have to be dangerous. But I won’t unless you’re okay with it.” He was quiet for a minute before nodding.

“Okay,” he said cautiously.

Kochanski scooter her chair closer to him and gently wrapped her arms around him, her palms flat against his back, holding him close. He expected it to be a quick hug, but she held on. His muscles were rigid as a board for the first few moments until he finally started to relax. Slowly he brought his arms around her torso, leaning into her embrace. Rimmer sighed, resting his head against her shoulder. His breath hitched and she could feel his tears on her skin.

“It’s okay,” she said, holding him tight. “It’s alright.” It seemed to be a watershed moment for him as he wept desperately. She ran soothing fingers through his damp hair. Eventually his sobs tapered off. He pulled away and she let him go. His face was flushed and he cast his gaze to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, wiping his face.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said.

“I’m just so tired.”

“It’s exhausting keeping that wall up. You don’t have to though. You don’t have to be on guard every second.”

“You do,” he insisted. “You let it down for one second and you’re dog food.”

“What if you scheduled a break?”

“Pardon?”

“What if you wrote it into your timetable? A half hour break from worrying.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No, I’m serious,” she said earnestly. “If you wrote it down, it might make it feel safer, you know? If you planned for it.” She took a pen and a piece of paper, writing 1200 – 1230: Mental Rest Period. She pinned it to his bulletin board. “You can do whatever you want to make yourself feel safe beforehand. Locking the doors, wrapping up in the duvet, making a cup of tea, whatever you need to do, and then give yourself permission not to worry, at least until 1300.”

Rimmer watched her intently, looking for any hint that she was going to turn around and laugh in his face for being such a gullible idiot. He didn’t see any signs, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. It was slightly alarming to him that what she was saying was starting to make a lot of sense.

“Will you be there?” he asked.

“I can be, if you’d like. Or I can leave you alone. Whatever you want.”

“Alright,” he said after a while. Chewing his lower lip he said, “I think… the company would be nice. In case I forget to relax.”

“I’ll be there,” she said.

“Kochanski,” he said as she got up to leave. “Err… Kris. Thank you.”

She smiled, giving his shoulder a squeeze before heading back to the upper decks.


	6. Crash

Kryten hummed pleasantly as he waddled around the sleeping quarters, picking up empty lager cans and throwing them into his trash bag. He scuttled around a vaguely human shaped lump, pulling the empty can from his hand, tutted, and continued tidying.

The droid found himself in the awkward position of worrying about Lister’s sharp nosedive into alcoholic abyss, while at the same time appreciating the extra work it gave him cleaning up and taking care of him. Not wanting to wake the man on the floor, Kryten plucked the Titan Hilton blanket from the top bunk and draped it over Lister before sweeping up the bits of broken glass and plastic littering the quarters.

The Cat, who had less patience for Lister’s existential crisis prowled into the room, scowling.

“What a dump,” he complained loudly. “This place is a litter box,” he said, looking down at Lister. The Cat gave Lister a swift kick to the soles of his feet. Lister startled awake and groaned.

“Cat, man. Smeg off, I’m knackered.”

“Look at you,” the Cat said with naked disgust. “You’ve been getting black out drunk for a week. It’s pathetic.”

“Gimme a break, man,” he said, curling in a ball under the blanket.

“You know what you look like, you homeless gorilla? You’re gonna pickle yourself stupid because you pissed off Goalpost Head?”

Lister had spent the last week drinking himself unconscious because when he blacked out, he didn’t dream. He didn’t dream of Rimmer in the tank or being burned alive. He didn’t dream that he was watching him scream for help as he was assaulted over and over, while Lister did nothing. That was the worst part about the dreams, was that while he was there he knew he could stop it. But he never did. So he got drunk instead.

Kochanski had been avoiding him, and he could tell himself it was because he was perpetually steaming, rather than because he was moral scum.

“Mr. Lister, sir, can I make you something to eat?” Kryten fussed.

“You ought to take him outside and hose him down,” Cat said. “I can smell him three decks away. Why do you think Officer Bud-babe has been hanging around Captain Sadness instead?”

“Because I’m garbage,” Lister said from under the dirty blanket.

“Nothing’s changed there, pal,” Cat said. “You think this is helping? If you’re so upset over your one-man pity parade, do you really think that acting like an inebriated orangutan is gonna wanna make those two come back here?”

“Why do you care?” Lister snapped.

“I don’t care. But it’s really hard to play poker with one person, no matter how good company I may be,” he said, stepping over the lump to grab a milk from the dispenser. Kryten wrung his angular hands together, struggling with an internal debate.

 

Rimmer was in his bunkroom, hyperventilating. He was folded in half over his knees, his forehead nearly touching the ground as he grasped his side, wheezing. There was a hot, stabbing pain just under his ribs and his head ached in nauseating pulses.

Only a few minutes ago he was organizing a set of astronavigation flash cards when he was suddenly overcome with shaking panic and cramping dry heaves. The fact that he didn’t actually need to breathe was no comfort as he felt his throat close and his chest constrict. His mouth felt dry and tasted bitter and salty, the heavy smell of sweat filled his nose.

He didn’t hear the knock at the door, or hear it slide open. He barely felt the soft cool hands on his back.

“Arnold,” Kochanski said, kneeling next to him. “Arnold, look at me.” Fingers ran through the brunette waves of hair. “Arnold, it’s okay, look at me.” Rimmer lifted his head up with effort, looking at Kochanski with puffy, red eyes. “Take a deep breath with me, okay? Inhale,” she instructed, taking in a breath for ten seconds. “Exhale,” slowly releasing the breath for ten seconds.

It took Rimmer a few false starts before he was able to regulate his breathing. Kochanski had taken one of his hands, rubbing it vigorously between her own.

“Arnold, you’re okay. You’re in your bunkroom, you’re okay. Tell me where you are.”

“I’m… I’m in my bunkroom,” he said in a breathless voice.

“Say, my name is Arnold Rimmer, and I’m in my bunkroom, and I’m safe.”

“My name is Arnold Rimmer. I’m in my bunkroom. I’m safe.”

“More deep breaths,” she said. Kochanski spotted two silver balls on his book shelf and picked them up, placing them in one of his hands. Rimmer took deep breaths, closing his eyes, and rotated the balls in his hand. Kochanski gently massaged the back of his neck as he started to calm down. “You’re okay,” she repeated.

“I don’t know what happened,” he finally said, looking embarrassed. “I was just sitting here and started to panic.”

“You probably had another flashback,” she said. Rimmer sighed, rubbing his face with his hand.

“God… I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want this other Rimmer in my head anymore. I don’t want Floor 13 in my head anymore.”

As an officer aboard the ship, Kochanski was required to know something of hologramatic operating mechanics. She knew it was possible, easy even, to upload or delete memories in holograms. Getting permission to do so was the hard part, as it was only under very extraordinary circumstances that a hologram’s memory was altered. There were a litany of safety, legal, and moral ramifications involved that made the whole process rarely worth the effort.

Three million years away from safety review boards and insurance claims made most of that moot. What made Kochanski hesitate was the advanced technology powering Rimmer’s hard light drive, and the Mesozoic age technology available on Red Dwarf. She wasn’t sure it wouldn’t make things worse. Not to mention the last time Rimmer and Lister had tried erasing their memories it had ended disastrously.

“We’ll figure something out,” Kochanski said as she helped Rimmer off the floor and sat him down in his bunk. She ordered two teas from the dispenser, handing him one as she sat next to him. Kochanski waited for him to take a few sips and start to unwind before she spoke. “I know why you came this far down into the ship, but maybe it’s time to come back up to the higher decks?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, narrowing his eyes. Kochanski sighed.

“I know you don’t want to run into Dave, and it’s okay if you’re not ready to talk to him yet. But you don’t have to be in the same corridor, or even the same deck as him. But if you’re closer I can be on hand if anything happens, you know?” Rimmer was silent for a while. “I didn’t tell Dave you’re down here, I won’t tell him if you’ve moved back up.”

Rimmer had been getting sick of the tin can accommodations on P Deck, and all the memories it was dredging up had been making things arguably worse over the week. He wasn’t sure if he subconsciously chose his and Lister’s old quarters for that very reason, so he could steep in his resentment.

“Alright,” he finally said. “But I do not want to run into Lister.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Kochanski said bitterly. “He’s been so blind drunk this past week you could kick him in the head and he probably wouldn’t notice you.” Rimmer gave a noncommittal grunt. Her tone softened. “He still needs you up there to give him a kick in the arse.”

“Yes, well he still may well get that,” Rimmer said, raising an eyebrow.

 

After some deliberation, Rimmer had finally decided which quarters he was going to move into. The priority was being away from Lister, being closer to Kochanski and Kryten more or less as a last resort, and comfort. Eventually he found himself striding into the Captain’s quarters as though he were marching into Poland.

Bouncing on the balls of his feet with his hands clasped behind his back as Kryten lugged his things in the room, he said, “yes, I think this will simply have to do for now.”

The Captain’s quarters were the largest on the ship, more like a small flat than a bunkroom. Why hadn’t he thought of this ages ago, Rimmer wondered? It was enormously satisfying to watch Kryten take down that pus head Hollister’s things and replace them with his own.

He idly considered that this is what the Cat must feel like when he went around marking everything on the ship. The thought that he would have anything in common with that stupid animal sent an ugly shiver through him, and he tried to forget the thought entirely.

 

A few decks below Rimmer, Lister stumbled towards one of the food dispensers, wrapped in his dirty blanket, and leaned heavily against it.

“Beer,” he ordered dully.

“Invalid request,” the tinny voice of the machine replied. Lister blinked.

“Beer,” he repeated.

“Invalid request.”

What the smeg did that mean? He tried another machine and got the same response. He tried another, and tried to order lager, vodka, whiskey, tequila, sake, hard lemonade. All the machines replied with “invalid request,” for any alcoholic beverages. He couldn’t even get rubbing alcohol.

“Holly,” Lister called out, rubbing his face irritably. “What the smeg is wrong with the machines?” The balding AI appeared on one of the corridor monitors.

“I’ve cut you off, mate,” he said pedantically.

“Stop messin’ Hol, and give me a damn beer,” he growled.

“Look at yourself, you’re jiggered. You can’t even stand up straight. You’ve been on your back more often than a Mimian prostitute. It’s 30 days off the sauce.”

Lister stormed back towards his quarters in a black mood. Running into Kryten, he brightened.

“Krytes,” he said, grabbing the mechanoid by the shoulders. “Just in time. Can you help me out and grab me a beer from one of the dispensers? They’ve all gone crazy.” The mechanoid cringed.

“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t do that.”

“You too?” Lister asked accusingly. Kryten deflated, his guilt chip overheating in his head.

“It’s for your own good, sir.”

Lister was able to endure the first day sober, cloistering himself in his bunkroom, away from everyone else. After the first night, waking up in cold sweats, retching pitifully, finally finishing out the night sleeping in the shower stall, Lister cornered Kryten again.

“Kryten, it is an emergency, and I medically require a pint.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lister, sir.”

“Kryten… I order you to give me a drink,” he said desperately. Kryten wrung his hands together and scrunched up his face.

“I’m sorry, sir. Miss Kochanski has ordered me not to follow any of your orders, and she outranks you. I’m sorry,” he apologized over and over.

The second night Lister awoke with the smell of burning flesh lingering in his memory. He rolled over in his bunk, staring off into the darkness. He saw Rimmer lying next to him, his lifeless eyes open half way, scabbed over and clouded with blood. His lips and nostrils were black and cracked from inhaling smoke. Lister could see the pool of blood seeping out of the back of his head, soaking his sheets, creeping closer.

Rimmer turned his head and looked at Lister, his dead eyes fogged with pain and betrayal. He opened his mouth, gurgled and choked. He coughed up blood and sticky white fluid. Lister reached out for him and felt only the cloth of his empty bed. The hallucination was gone, and he was alone.

 

Rimmer lay on the cold metal floor, shivering as his entire body was wracked with pain. Any bits of his suit left on him were hanging in rags. His skin was a nebula of purpling bruises, dotted with constellations of swollen bites and livid suck marks. Semen dried in itchy patches while blood continued to flow down his thighs and pool beneath him.

He heard the heavy booted feet of the prison guards approach. Mr. Knot’s huge shadow fell over Rimmer, who tried to roll over onto his side. Knot pushed Rimmer flat on his back with his boot, looking down at the man with amused contempt. He unholstered his truncheon, kneeling down next to Rimmer.

Rimmer looked up at Knot, wide eyed, quaking in fear. He wanted to cry out for help, but his throat was so ravaged he couldn’t even whisper, and there was no one to cry out to.

Knot pushed the tip of his truncheon against Rimmer’s lips, smearing the various fluids spilled or bled on them. He whimpered as Knot slid the hard stick against his teeth, as if to remind him how easily they could be knocked out of his head. He pushed the tip of the stick between his lips and teeth, probing his mouth.

Rimmer wanted to crawl away, but his useless body was paralyzed with pain and fear. Cold dread settled in the pit of his stomach. He was certain Knot was going to kill him. His brain was ramping up, preparing to have his nose smashed into his skull, or his jaw broken. He tried not to move as the baton pushed past his tongue and dipped into the soft palate of his throat. Rimmer gagged wretchedly and Knot pulled the stick just out of the way of his throat, running it along his teeth again. Knot probed his throat again, making him gag. This went on for several minutes, tears streaming down Rimmer’s temples as he was repeatedly gagged.

“You want to go to the infirmary, don’t you?” Knot asked. Rimmer nodded, mouthing ‘please.’ Knot held the tip of his truncheon just above Rimmer’s lips. “Give it a little lick. Go on.”

Still terrified he would die on the prison floor, his tongue slipped out of his mouth, touching it tentatively to the stick, slicked with his own saliva.

“Good boy,” Knot said. “Give it a little kiss.” Rimmer pressed his lips to it and Knot laughed. He stood up and shouted, “MEDIC.”

Rimmer lay in the wide comfortable bed in the captain’s quarters, shaking in pain and fear. His long, pale fingers knotted the bed covers as he tried to regulate his breathing and slow his heartbeat. He could barely suck in a single breath, and finally stumbled out of bed, gasping.

On his hands and knees, he crawled to the table where he’d left his baoding balls. He grabbed them, grinding them together, trying to focus.

“My name… is Arnold J. Rimmer… I’m in my room… I’m safe,” he wheezed. “My name is Arnold J. Rimmer... I’m safe… I’m safe… no one can hurt me… I’m already dead… I’m already dead and no one can hurt me…”

The silver balls fell through his pale intangible hands.


	7. Bootstrap Protocol

Kochanski entered Rimmer’s quarters, noticing something different. Rimmer was sitting at the little table in the kitchenette area, his arms crossed against his chest, his eyes staring vacantly at nothing.

“Arnold?” she said, reaching to put a hand on his shoulder. Her fingers passed through him without resistance. _Oh._ She drew it back and sat across from him at the table. “Are you alright?” He looked at her with tired eyes.

“Tickety-boo.” Kochanski frowned. She spotted the two silver balls on the floor. She picked them up and placed them on the table, rolling them around idly under her palms.

“Rough night?”

“About average.” He attempted to put some edge in his sarcasm, but the energy just wasn’t there.

“Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
“No.”

“Do you want me to make you some tea?” He shook his head. “I’ll make some for myself, if you don’t mind.” She watched his blank expression for a moment, gnawing her bottom lip. It seemed like they’d taken one step forward and ten steps back.

Kochanski stood up and poured water in the kettle, setting it on the stove. As it heated up, she looked around the newly furnished quarters. With the cramped conditions on P Deck, most of Rimmer’s personal possessions had been packed away in boxes, there only being room for a few text books and some newspaper clippings. With the bigger space, there was room to have his things out on display. Wooden soldiers on a shelf, an illustrated directory of military motorcycles on the coffee table. There weren’t a lot of things, but what there was added a personal touch that the smaller quarters had lacked.

Something seemed missing somehow. She noticed there were no photographs anywhere. No pictures of family or friends, no pets, no vacation snapshots. She thought of her photos of her mum and dad, her school friends, of her horse Trumper. She thought of Dave’s photos of his Gran, his twin boys. Kochanski realized that one didn’t notice these things so much until they were missing. It was one of the loneliest rooms she’d ever found herself in.

What really caught her attention was an antique style map of Io on the wall, labeled in immaculate, copperplate handwriting. Taking a closer look, she realized it wasn’t a print, but an original painting. In the bottom right hand corner it was signed AJR ‘71.

“What’s this?” Kochanski asked. Rimmer dragged his gaze towards the object of her attention.

“Oh, that,” he said dully.

“Did you paint this?” Leaning against the wall were more maps; Ganymede, Europa, Callisto, apparently still waiting to be hung somewhere. “These are amazing,” she said, surprised. She didn’t realize Rimmer had any kind of artistic inclinations. She wondered if the Rimmer in her dimension had been a painter as well. “They’re beautiful.”

As the kettle whistled, she fixed her cup of tea, making one for Rimmer as well, bringing the cups to the table. She sat down and pushed the mug towards him. He didn’t look at it or her.

“You should have been pursued a career in art,” she said. That did catch his attention, and he snorted indignantly. “I’m serious, those paintings are amazing. I had no idea you painted.” Rimmer rolled his eyes in her direction, narrowing them with disgust.

“The only thing that would have made me a bigger career failure than being second technician on a mining ship would have been being an artist.” The last word was bloated with contempt. “An artsy fartsy yuppy poncing around in black polo necks, subjecting normal people to their inner soul, or whatever, without bothering to find a real job. I think that would have been my father’s fifth stroke.”

Kochanski found it sadly ironic that Rimmer appeared to have such distain for the only thing he seemed to have a knack for. Not just a knack, but a real gift. From what she’d heard of his family, a hard edged military family spanning generations previous, she could imagine there wasn’t much enthusiasm for the creative arts. But the subject had gotten him talking.

“Do you paint anything else? People or landscapes or anything?” He shook his head.

“Just cartography.”

“When did you start?” He shrugged.

“In school. I always enjoyed geography. Until I actually had to know things about it. I just liked making the maps.”

“Why didn’t you pursue cartography professionally?” Rimmer looked at her as though she’d asked why he hadn’t decided to become a magician.

“I wanted to become an officer.”

“Why? You were never cut out for it. I mean,” she said, interrupting before Rimmer could get too far into an angry retort. “I don’t mean any offense by it, but you spent your life unhappily grinding your head against physics and astronavigation books, taking the exams sent you into panic attacks. But looking at those paintings, you had an incredible talent. And you liked doing it.” Rimmer still looked frustrated and perplexed.

“All of my brothers were in the Space Corps. It was demanded of us. There wasn’t any deciding what you were going to do. We were going to be officers if it killed us.”

The idea that Rimmer could just do something else never even entered his head, not once. Even now, three million years into deep space and the extinction of the human race, the idea that becoming an officer was necessary to his survival was coded into every level of his psyche.

Kochanski looked at the well-worn, tabbed and dog-eared astronav text books lining the shelves, frowning. It was like looking at a fish who wanted so desperately to fly.

“Do you still paint?” He shook his head.

“I haven’t painted since I died. Even before that it had been a while. I didn’t have much time for it on Red Dwarf.”

“Have some tea.” Rimmer looked at the mug on the table, but kept his arms crossed. “Why are you in soft light mode?” He was silent long enough that Kochanski thought he wasn’t going to answer, but he finally sighed, closing his eyes.

“When I’m in soft light, I can’t feel anything. Including the flashbacks.”

“Is that what happened last night?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think would happen if you switched back to hard light now?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t want to find out.”

“So, what? Are you just going to stay in soft light forever now?” He opened his eyes again to glare at her.

“I might. I’m rediscovering the advantages of being dead.”

 

Towards the end of the week, Lister was faring better physically, at least during the day. While tired and irritable, he was sober and functional, but he was still a wet blanket as far as the Cat was concerned. Lounging in the bottom bunk, he watched Lister crocheting at the table.

“Watching you mope around is getting really boring,” he said, yawning.

“So why don’t you go bug someone else then?”

“Watching Goalpost Head mope around is also really boring.” Lister turned around to give the Cat an incredulous look.

“What? Have you seen him?” The Cat rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, like every day on my prowl.”

“You know where he is?”

“I know where everyone is, I know where everything is on my ship, monkey.”

“What the smeg, well where is he?” Lister asked, tossing aside his knitting.

“Two floors up in the captain’s quarters, dummy.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lister asked hotly.

“You never asked.”

 

Lister paced around the deck anxiously, trying not to sweat. He shook out his damp palms as he meandered. He had showered and shaved, tried to clean himself up before heading towards Rimmer’s hideout. He’d practically run there after he’d finished, but as he got closer to the captain’s quarters, he didn’t know what he was going to say.

He finally stopped trying to plan out his apology speech and just wing it, which usually worked out well enough. As he headed down the corridor, Lister heard banging noises. The sharp clang of metal on metal and incoherent shouting. Lister quickened his pace and stopped as he rounded the corner.

Rimmer was at the end of the corridor with some twisted bit of metal in his hands, clumps of wires hanging off the bent, jagged edge. He was smashing it against a gutted food dispenser, red-faced and screaming. The dispenser smoked and sparked, an electronic rattle buzzing through the broken speaker.

Lister stared, watching the spectacle, unsure of what to do. When Rimmer dropped the bit of metal and started tearing out more of the machine’s guts with his bare hands, Lister ran over, grabbing him by the shoulders, pulling him away.

“Whoa, calm down, mate!”

“How do you like being the dog now you filthy piece of smegging metal trash?” Rimmer screamed at the machine, trying to jerk out of Lister’s grip. He pulled another handful of frayed wires out of the machine.

Lister had no idea what Rimmer was on about, but dragged him back into the captain’s quarters. When the door slid shut he let go and Rimmer tore away and started pacing the room. After a few minutes he looked at Lister and stopped. His green eyes narrowed.

“How did you find me?” he hissed.

“Lucky guess,” he said sheepishly.

“Well go away, I don’t want to talk to you,” Rimmer said, crossing his arms.

“Please, Rimmer,” Lister said. “I have to talk to you.” He reached out to touch Rimmer’s shoulder, and Rimmer’s eyes flashed with panic. He took a step back and his blue tunic turned red. The tips of Lister’s fingers slid through the hologram. He snatched his hand away, looking abashed. “I’m not gonna hurt you, Rimmer,” he said desperately.

“That’s right, you’re not. Never again,” he said, shaking an accusing finger at the Scouser.

“Rimmer. I am so sorry. I’ve done wrong by you, and I have no excuses for it, except to say that I’m stupid and an idiot and I don’t think things through.” Lister wasn’t sure if Rimmer was listening or not, but he had to get everything out. “I didn’t mean for it to happen… to go so far… it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. And when we couldn’t save you from the fire I just felt like… we keep losing you. And I don’t want to lose you, and I don’t want to be the reason you’ve gone.” Lister wiped at his misting eyes. “Whatever happens now, I aim to do better by you, because you deserve that. You’re my best mate.”

Rimmer didn’t know what to say. He knew Lister would find him eventually, and he’d expected Lister to tell him he was being childish or overly sensitive, that he just couldn’t take a joke. He’d expected that because that’s what Lister had told him the first time. He realized now that Lister actually hadn’t known how far it went, but it still hurt. He had never expected Lister to apologize to him in tears. To tell him he was his friend.

Lister hung his head down, staring at his boots, ready to accept whatever judgment Rimmer was going to pass.

“I don’t know,” Rimmer finally said quietly, shaking his head. “I have to think about this for a while.” Lister nodded.

“I understand that,” he said. He looked up again. “It’s just… I miss you.”

In spite of his anger, there was a part of Rimmer that still missed Lister. He missed what they had before he stepped into the cockpit of the Wildfire. Hugging the man that even Rimmer had to admit had become his friend. He missed being able to think of Lister as a friend. But the fact was right now he simply didn’t trust him. He didn’t think Lister would go out of his way to hurt him directly, but he didn’t trust that Lister wasn’t going to make some stupid decision because he was bored or careless or both that would leave Rimmer on the receiving end of the consequences.

“Look,” Lister said. “Why don’t you come up to the bar with me, and we have a drink, yeah?” He watched the muscles bunch in Rimmer’s jaw and expected him to refuse, and it had been his intention to. But somehow he found himself agreeing instead.

“Fine. But leave me alone for an hour or so. I’ll meet you on C Deck,” he said, stiffly.

 

Lister sat at the bar nursing an iced tea, having forgotten he was still on probation with Holly, trying to relax. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous. The only thing he could compare it to was when he’d tried to figure out what he was going to say to Kochanski when he’d turned on her hologram disk, and Lister wasn’t entirely comfortable with the implications of that train of thought.

He took a drag off his fifth cigarette as he spotted Rimmer come in out of the corner of his eye. Lister felt slightly dismayed to see Rimmer still in his red tunic. It was something he’d never thought about in the past, whether Rimmer was in hard light or soft light.

Back on Starbug it had been a question of power saving, for the most part. Here on Red Dwarf, where power wasn’t an issue, that red tunic meant something different. It meant Rimmer wasn’t comfortable having a physical presence around Lister. It was a big red stop sign that said, ‘don’t touch me.’

“Hey, mate,” Lister said, waving his hand, as though Rimmer needed help finding him in the empty room. Rimmer’s eyes were aloof and suspicious, making Lister hyper aware and self-conscious of his every move. “What are you drinkin’ then?”

Rimmer sat stiffly on the barstool next to Lister. “Dry white wine, please Holly,” he said. Lister had hoped Rimmer would switch to hard light in order to enjoy a real drink, and was disappointed to see the hologram opt for Holly’s simulation.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, man,” Lister said, trying not to sound defensive. Rimmer raised an eyebrow.

“You keep saying that.”

“What could I possibly do to you here?”

“I’m sure you’d think of something creative,” Rimmer said bitterly. Lister was getting frustrated. He took a sip of his tea, frowning. A beer would have soothed his nerves. At least the tea was keeping his mouth from going dry.

“What can I do, Rimmer?” Lister pleaded. “What can I do to make this up to you?”

“I don’t know!” Rimmer said, not bothering to keep the frustration out of his voice. “I wish I did! I wish I could tell you it would be simple enough to smear jam on your testicles and dip them in a can of fire ants for an hour and then everything would be square. That _something_ would make us even and everything would be better, but I can’t! Nothing can undo what you did to me,” he said, launching himself from his seat to pace in agitation. “Nothing can replace what you’ve taken away from me!”

“What did I take away from you?”

“I trusted you!” Rimmer shouted, suddenly solid and grabbing Lister by the lapels of his jacket, yanking him out of his seat. “I gave you that virus! I gave you the knife and you stabbed me in the back!” The anger in his face crumpled into despair. “After everything that happened… you were the only one I trusted, the only person I could have ever called a friend. It might not have meant much to you, but it was all I had.” Rimmer’s hands released Lister and he made to turn away, but Lister grabbed him, pulling him into a hug.

“I’m sorry, Rimmer,” Lister said. “And I know it’s not good enough, and I know I buggered this up. You don’t owe me forgiveness, but please let me try. Please let me try to get my best friend back.”

Rimmer stood there with Lister hanging off him, every simulated muscle in his body as tight as steel cables, trying to absorb what Lister was telling him. He wanted to believe him, but he’d been through this before. Lister telling him they were mates, that they were friends, that he loved him, then turning right around and telling him it was a lie. That he was a stupid smegging idiot for believing that tot.

Granted right now they weren’t trying to escape Rimmer’s ravaged psyche, and he couldn’t see what advantage Lister would have for setting him up again now. Except for maybe a laugh. Which was exactly why they were in the situation they were in now. Rimmer had been gang raped for a laugh.

A painful chill settled inside Rimmer’s chest, like a cold heavy stone. Lister’s hands slipped through the intangible man and Rimmer stepped away, out of Lister’s reach. His red tunic saying ‘don’t touch me.’ He crossed his arms tightly, staring at Lister’s boots with red rimmed eyes.

“Lister… I just don’t trust you. And I don’t know if I can again. I want to. But things aren’t going to change just because we want them to.”

Lister didn’t know what to say, and quietly watched Rimmer turn and leave the bar.


	8. 640KB Barrier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, a thanks to NorthernLights for giving me a good kick and telling me to see this story out properly. The bit at the end of the last chapter, where everyone lives mediocre ever after, has been excised. If it assists the flow of your reading to return to the last paragraph or so, it flows immediately into the beginning of this chapter.

Rimmer felt shaken after his encounter with Lister. He’d spent the hour before they’d met in the bar dry heaving. As he headed down the corridor, he felt anxious and exhausted at the same time. He wanted to run through the ship, back down into the bowels of the engine room and never stop. His long, ungainly limbs wanted to move, but the rest of him was too tired.

When he reached the privacy of his quarters, he let out a sob. His hands covered his face as he sucked in a breath and tried to keep himself from coming undone. Rimmer felt like he was supposed to be angry, to want to lash out and break things in an aggressive, manly way. But all he felt was listless and sad. It felt like he was crying all the time these days.

_‘Oh yes, when the going gets tough, the tough go and have a little cry in the corner.’_

“Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up,” he hissed at his hateful mind.

_'You’ve got a sponge for a backbone.’_

Frank wouldn’t have let it happen to him. Frank was always the tough one, the strong one. He would have fought them all off, one at a time or all together.

Howard would have figured a way out. Howard was always so clever. He could always get out of anything.

John would never have been there in the first place. None of them would, though, would they? The perfect Rimmer brothers. The Three Musketeers. And their stupid, slow, weak tagalong brother Arnold. Bonehead. Ace.

The thought of Ace made him feel sick and hot with embarrassment. The idea that he could have ever really been Ace. Ace would have kicked all their heads in, charmed the guards, and made off with Talia just in time to enjoy a smoked kipper.

Ace wouldn’t have been raped.

_‘Ace wouldn’t have enjoyed it.’_

Rimmer felt his insides freeze.

_‘Ace wouldn’t have gotten a stiffy while on all fours like a dog in heat.’_

“No, no, no… it wasn’t like that. It didn’t… it didn’t happen, that wasn’t…” Rimmer fumbled. He pretended he hadn’t gotten an erection. He pretended he didn’t remember. He pretended he hadn’t come in the rough, insistent hands of one of his assailants.

_‘Twisted little pervert that you are. So pathetically desperate for touch that even those barely human convicts turned you on, didn’t they?’_

“No!”

_‘You should be grateful. No one else would want to touch you.’_

During the psychotropic trial, Rimmer thought he’d had sex with five women, including Yvonne McGruder. His heart caved in with loneliness at the thought of Yvonne. Of course it had been a fantasy.

_‘Soon enough you’ll be parading up and down in taffeta ball gowns, drinking mint juleps, whipping the houseboy.’_

The image of himself bent over with that red gingham dress pushed up while he was fucked from behind and beaten with his father’s riding crop flashed in his mind. It was such an abrupt, unexpected, and upsetting thought. Rimmer felt like he was losing his mind.

He sat on the end of his bed, holding his head as his mind raced. He felt the bed solidly beneath him as he switched back to hard light. He felt the small light bee firmly in the palm of his hand as he reached into his own chest. His thumb brushed idly against the power switch.

“Shiny clean boots and a spanking short haircut and you can cope with anything,” his father had said before putting the gun in his mouth. He’d managed to blow off the back of his head without killing himself. Instead he’d confined himself to sitting by a window and dribbling.

Don’t cheap out half way, just crush the damned thing. Light bees were surprisingly fragile.

Rimmer quickly pulled his hand out of his chest, panicked. What was he doing?

“Holly?” Rimmer called out in a small, cracked voice.

“Yes, Arnold?”

“Where is Kochanski?”

“Level 413.”

“Can you,” he paused, trying to assert some control over his voice. “Can you ask her to come to my quarters, please?”

“I think I can just about manage that,” the computer said.

 

Kochanski knocked on Rimmer’s door, letting herself in after hearing his muted “come in.” At first she’d thought Lister was there, as she walked through a haze of cigarette smoke. She was surprised to see Rimmer pacing the room, puffing through half a fag.

There were about six or seven butts in an ash tray on the table. Rimmer looked quite green.

“What are you doing?” she asked. He looked up and gave her a ghoulish cringing burlesque of a smile, trying to look calm.

“Nasty habit, these, but they are relaxing, aren’t they?” he said, taking another stomach knotting drag and turning one shade greener. She plucked the cigarette from his shaking hand, snubbing it out.

“What’s wrong?”

“I, um. I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” he said. His puffy red eyes and nose stood out against his ashy twitching face, the whole thing looking ready to collapse. His ordinarily gel locked hair was unkempt with curls sticking out every which way, as though he’d been constantly raking his hands through it.

Rimmer sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face. Kochanski sat next to him, waiting for him to continue.

“Did I ever tell you my father tried to kill himself?” he asked nonchalantly. Kochanski struggled to tamp down alarm and convey calm concern instead.

“No. I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. Rimmer waved his hand to fend off condolences.

“He didn’t succeed. Just suffered irreparable brain damage. Doesn’t matter. I mean it’s been on my mind a lot. Our similarities. We weren’t very similar people at all, except in our shortcomings, I think. Maybe that’s why we… didn’t often see eye to eye,” he said diplomatically. “Unlike my brothers, I reminded him of all of his failings.” He shook his head. “I’m getting off track. The point is, um,” his voice waivered again. “I’m just concerned that we’ll come to the same conclusion.”

“Are you saying you’re thinking of suicide?” she tried to ask tactfully. Rimmer laughed almost desperately.

“It’s a funny thought, isn’t it? A dead person thinking of killing themselves.”

“It’s not funny at all,” Kochanski said, her brows knitting in distress.

Rimmer folded himself over, putting his head between his legs, hugging his stomach. He let the tears roll down his overly large nose, trying not to be too loud about his crying. He didn’t know what the point of that was, except probably some ingrained thing from childhood. Kochanski already knew what a weeping sissy ponce he was.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he choked. “I’m just not cut out for this sort of thing. I’m too soft and incompetent to cope.”

“Arnold, there’s no right or wrong way to cope with something like this,” she said, rubbing her fingers between his shoulder blades. “There’s no elegant and proper way to grieve.”

Kochanski laid Rimmer back on the bed, sitting up next to him. She wrapped her arm around him as he hugged her waist. It was a novel feeling to curl up next to a warm body, small, delicate fingers smoothing out errant curls of hair. It was calming to lay next to a person with no expectations. To feel safe.

 

Consciousness returned to Rimmer in slow layers. The sound of someone moving around in the kitchenette. The smell of bacon, eggs, sausage, beans. He finally opened his eyes to see Kochanski plating two dishes of food.

It seemed early to Rimmer, never being a natural early riser. But feeling drained, the enticement of a hot full breakfast compelled him to rub his tired eyes and approach the table.

“Morning,” Kochanski said, setting a cup of tea next to his plate. Rimmer looked sheepish and wary.

“Thank you,” he said, sitting down. “Did you cook this yourself?”

“Yeah. I know you can order it made from the dispensers, but they never get it right. The eggs are always either undercooked or overcooked, the beans are cold. It’s always something. It makes for a better breakfast to just order the stuff and cook it yourself.”

Rimmer had to admit, it was much better than the slop the dispenser cooked up. Aside from the fact that the one outside his quarters was out of commission.

“Can I ask you something?” Kochanski said midway through the meal. “Have you given any thought to just… editing your memory? It would be easy enough to do down in the projection suite.”

“It has crossed my mind a few times,” Rimmer admitted.

“What would stop you from doing that?” The hologram sighed.

“Years ago, Lister planted false memories in my head. He made me think I had dated one of his old girlfriends.”

“Dave had mentioned that.”

“It was one of the most crushing things I’d ever experienced. The idea that someone I’d loved more than anything had never loved me. Had never even met me.” He shook his head. “Aside from it being heartbreaking, the idea that I might not be able to trust my own memories was disconcerting. Not just disconcerting, it’s terrifying, frankly. The thing with the trial and the memory drugs didn’t help much either. Someone could do whatever they wanted to me, and then just make me forget, like it didn’t matter.”

“When the JMC gave you memory drugs after what happened, instead of going to the trouble of punishing the men who attacked you, it felt like they were invalidating what happened?”

“Yes, exactly. I suppose we were already in the Tank, there wasn’t much more that could be done. I just feel like if I forget…”

“It might happen again?”

“It sounds stupid. The idea of messing around with my memories just makes me very nervous.”

“Arnold. Do you trust me?”

This was a complicated question. Rimmer didn’t trust anyone. He’d been raised to never trust anyone. He’d been burned every time he had. He recalled that of everyone left on board, Kochanski was actually the only one who hadn’t set him up in some way. Not yet. Of the people left on board, he supposed she was the one he trusted the most by default.

“I suppose,” he said warily.

“I know how to operate the projection suite with a little more finesse than Dave. Let me take you down there. You can watch everything I do, and I won’t do anything unless you tell me it’s okay.”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”

“That’s fair. Let me know what you decide. Whenever you’re ready.”

 

Kochanski headed towards the botanical gardens to find Kryten. She figured it would be a good idea to conference with the mechanoid about the specifics of Rimmer’s light bee. Her Dave had been a hard light hologram as well, but she had no way of knowing if the technology in this universe was the same as her own or not.

On her way, she spotted Lister. He looked like he was waiting for her.

“Dave,” she said, trying to sound casual.

“Are you sleeping with Rimmer?” he asked point blank.

“Excuse me?” Kochanski felt the heat of indignation rising in her face. Lister thought it was a pretty straight forwards question, so he let it hang in the air between them. She narrowed her eyes and tried to keep her tone even. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

“I suppose it’s not my business,” he said stiffly. “Just with you staying in his quarters all night, I just wondered.”

“What, were you spying on me?”

“I wanted to talk to you, and Holly told me where you were.”

“I slept over in his quarters, but we weren’t fucking,” she said, feeling a twinge of satisfaction when Lister cringed at her choice of words. An uncomfortable silence settled before Lister spoke up again.

“How is he?”

“A wreck.” The air of hopelessness that settled around Lister like a lead blanket softened some of the anger simmering in Kochanski. “I’m going to talk to Kryten about tweaking Rimmer’s systems, maybe give him some relief. You might get a second chance to make up with him. Don’t cock it up.”

 

“I’ve spoken to Kryten,” Kochanski told Rimmer later in his quarters. “The technology on my Red Dwarf should be exactly the same as on this one, but all the same I think it would be a good idea if he came with us just to make sure. Have you decided what you want to do?” Rimmer nodded.

“I want this out of my head. Let’s do it.”

The pair met Kryten down in the hologram simulation suite on floor 592, where the mechanoid was booting up the editing programme.

“It should be ready to go, mum,” Kryten said. “I’ll be supervising the raw data on the other console. We ought to be able to edit to individual bits, if necessary.”

Rimmer sat behind Kochanski so he could see everything she was doing.

“So here’s what we propose,” Kochanski said. “I’m going to do what Kryten did when he was screening your systems for errors. I’m going to quarantine the memories off behind a password protected firewall. That way I’m not permanently altering your memory files. How does that sound?”

“Okay,” Rimmer said. He felt more comfortable with the idea that nothing was being removed or replaced, but he still felt like he was about to receive a double lobotomy. He tried to relax.

“As far as memories indirectly related to the event, like conversations we’ve had about it over the last few weeks, I’m going to install a series of sort of mental bumpers. They’re not blocking the memories, but they’ll allow your subconscious to simply skim over them. The details should be obscured, unless you’re concentrating very hard to find them. By doing that instead of quarantining them as well, it should help minimize the perception of mental gapping. Making it a little more seamless.”

“Essentially, we’re anti-aliasing your brain,” Kryten said succinctly. Rimmer didn’t find this particularly illuminating.

“Whatever, just get on with it,” he said.

“Alright. Initializing the programme,” Kochanski said. “Here we go.”

 

Lister was sulking in the refectory as the Cat was polishing off his lunch.

“So Bud-Babe and Triumph Razor Edge Face are scrubbing Goalpost Head’s brain then?” the Cat asked.

“Yeah,” Lister sighed.

“And then you two monkeys can stop being such buzzkills?”

“I guess.” Lister sighed again and the Cat rolled his eyes. “I think Krissy might be fancying Rimmer these days.”

“Uh huh. And which of them are you more jealous of?” Cat asked in a sly tone.

“I don’t know,” Lister answered honestly.

Even though he and Kochanski weren’t together, there was a mindlessly primal feeling of possessiveness he tried to beat back. He also thought it was cosmically unfair that she was spending so much time with His Rimmer, and Lister barely saw him at all. He knew it was his own fault, but he felt like he was losing both of them.

“I don’t know why you monkeys put so much thought into sex,” Cat said.

“What? You think about sex all the time,” Lister said incredulously. “It’s one of three things you only think about out.”

“Yeah, I think about sex, I don’t worry about it. You monkeys worry about who’s having sex with who and why and how many times and get all bent out of shape over it. Who cares if she has sex with Nova Nostrils? Do you think she’d care if you had sex with him?”

“No, but I think he might have some objections.” Cat shook his head.

“You’re all so desperate for sex and yet you’re so damn picky.”

“It’s not just about sex, Cat,” Lister said, rubbing his temples. “There’s love too.”

“That is your fundamental flaw as a species,” Cat opined. “No wonder you went extinct.”

“I don’t see any Felis sapiens running around here either.”

“Well maybe Officer Bud-Babe and I can create a new super race together,” Cat said, wagging his eyebrows.

“Don’t make me neuter you,” Lister growled.

“See? This is exactly what I’m talking about. You’re all so touchy about sex.”

“Hold up,” Lister said, spotting Kochanski walk in with Rimmer and Kryten. “Hey,” he said as they approached the table. “How did it go?”

“Tickety-boo,” Rimmer said briskly. “Just had to defrag a few files, clean up a bit of space. I’m thinking much clearer now.”

Kryten pulled Lister a side to speak to him privately.

“Mr. Rimmer is under the impression that the session was a follow up to his reboot, an additional check up on his hard disk.”

“So he doesn’t remember anything from the past few weeks?”

“He’s aware that time has passed, but the details are obscured. It would be best not to bring up any of the unpleasant business,” Kryten advised.

“Got it.” Lister returned to the table where the rest of them were sitting. “So Rimmer, man,” he said, trying to sound casual, aware of Kochanski watching him like a hawk. “When are you moving back in, eh?” Rimmer raised an eyebrow.

“When is it going to stop putting shambolic frat houses to shame?”

“Eh? I’ve been keeping it clean. Socks in the bin, not a lager can in sight. Holly still won’t give me any drinks anyway.”

“Best idea I’ve heard in a while,” Rimmer said. “You were nursing that beer belly again.”

“You what?”

“I swear, at one point I thought another set of twins were going to drop out at any moment.”

“Oh eh, thanks a lot,” Lister said, feigning offense. In truth, he couldn’t have been happier. He was practically ecstatic. Their banter felt so much like old times, he couldn’t believe the procedure had worked so well.

“I suppose complete and total and utter bliss and order and peace have become a bit old hat,” Rimmer said sarcastically. “As long as I’m not moving back into Dresden.” Lister gave Rimmer his crossed heart scout salute.

“I promise. Everything’s different now.”

 

Rimmer’s things were once again moved back into his and Lister’s shared quarters. Some of the larger items were left in the captain’s quarters, as Rimmer decided to keep it as a personal holiday suite.

“Rimmer, man,” Lister said as the pair reclined in their bunks that night.

“Hmm?” Rimmer said, thumbing through a book.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

“I’ve only been away a few weeks.”

“I know, but I still missed you.”

Rimmer wasn’t sure what to say. After what seemed like far too long a silence, he forced himself to say, “well, um. I missed you too.” While it was perfectly true, it still felt odd for him to say it out loud.

The brief exchange reminded Lister a little too much of the dream he’d had of snogging Rimmer. “Well, g’night, smegger,” he quipped, trying to slough off the luvviness that neither of them was totally comfortable with.

 

Sometime in the night, Lister awoke to the strangled, panicking gasps of his bunkmate. Wide awake now, Lister hopped out of his bunk, switching on the bottom bunk’s built in book light. Rimmer twisted in his sleep, agony etched on his face.

“Smeg, smeg,” Lister hissed. He put gentle hands on Rimmer’s shoulders. “Rimmer, wake up. Rimmer!” He gave him a little shake and finally Rimmer’s eyes snapped open, reflecting wild terror. Almost instantly they focused on Lister and the fear creeped away.

“Lister?”

“You were having a nightmare,” he said. Rimmer’s tongue darted across his dry lips and his eyes flickered, looking blank.

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to wake you… sorry.”

“S’okay. Are you alright?”

“Fine. Don’t even remember what I was dreaming.” He chuckled nervously.

This was the beginning of a number of things that indicated to Lister that everything had not worked out exactly perfectly.

During the daytime hours, it would be hard to notice that anything was amiss. They bantered and quipped and carried on like normal, but in the quiet moments Lister would occasionally catch Rimmer staring off into space with an absent, broken expression. Lister would tap him on the shoulder and ask if he was alright, and Rimmer would look at him, the hollowness gone, and tell him he was fine.

In the evening hours however, neither of them were getting much sleep. Rimmer was constantly plagued by nightmares he couldn’t remember. He would wake up anxious and shaken, weighted down by a suffocating feeling of dread he couldn’t explain. He became jumpy and tense, startled by loud or unexpected sounds.

“I don’t think it worked,” Lister said to Kryten and Kochanski when they met in the refectory.

“Mr. Rimmer’s mind has been historically resistant to alteration. Are his memories resurfacing?” Kryten asked.

“No, he still doesn’t remember anything, but he’s still wandering around like a shell shocked zombie.”

“So all we’ve done is repressed the memories, without dealing with the symptoms?” Kochanski said, feeling depressed. They had all been so sure this would work. If Rimmer was simply a computer, it might have. But the human mind, even a simulated one, was so much more complex.

“Maybe he ought to talk to one of the ship’s counselors?” Lister said, mostly as mental kindling. All three of them knew that Brannigan and McClaren were both useless.

“McClaren would have Rimmer spitting tacks and probably end up punching him out. I know I’ve wanted to a few times,” Kochanski said.

“That may not be a bad idea,” Kryten replied brightly.

“What? Punching the shrink?” Lister asked.

“Mr. Rimmer has always functioned best when he’d had an antagonist. Someone he could constantly correct, someone stupid that he could feel superior over. That’s why you made his perfect roommate, sir.” Kryten smiled innocently at Lister’s incredulous face.

“What are you getting at, Kryten?”

“I’m saying that if we can provide Mr. Rimmer with someone he can hate more than himself, it may get out of his mental rut.”


	9. Hard Code

Rimmer jumped in surprise as Lister came through the sleeping quarter door.

“You need to relax mate,” Lister said. “You’ll live longer.”

“Ha-ha,” Rimmer mocked humourlessly, returning to the book he was reading. Lister walked up behind him and put a hand on his tense shoulder. The simulated muscles bunched even tighter under his touch.

“I’m serious, though. You’ll fry your diodes. You need to learn how to unwind.” The tips of Lister’s fingers lightly brushed the back of Rimmer’s neck, just under his hairline. A shiver went through the hologram. He tried to ignore Lister and re-read the last sentence in his book for the 25th time.

Lister put his hands on top of Rimmer’s head and ran his fingers through the thick waves of hair, grazing his fingertips along his scalp. Rimmer inhaled sharply. Having his hair touched was one of his favourite sensations, but he didn’t often get to enjoy it. How do you tell someone, “hello, can you touch my head, please?” without coming off as a bit strange?

As soon as Rimmer really started enjoying it, all the familiar defenses kicked in and he quickly stood up from the table. He turned to face Lister, who didn’t back out of his personal space.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at, miladdo–” he was cut off as Lister took his face in his hands and leaned in to brush his lips against Rimmer’s. An electric thrill went through him, and he stood there dumbly as Lister leaned in again and pressed his lips against him more firmly.

Lister’s thumb brushed against the scar on Rimmer’s jaw, and the hologram’s mouth parted slightly as Lister’s tongue gave a quick, exploratory probe. Rimmer was glad the table was bolted to the floor, allowing him to lean fully against it as Lister pressed in closer. He put his hands tentatively on Lister’s hips, his heart racing faster as Lister’s tongue probed a little deeper.

Lister’s hand slid down Rimmer’s chest, brushing his stomach, and gave Rimmer a bold grope between the legs. Rimmer jerked away from Lister’s kiss, breathless and trembling.

“Don’t,” he said. Lister smiled at him boyishly, bringing him in for another kiss. His hand pressed between Rimmer’s legs again and Rimmer pushed Lister away. “I said don’t!”

“Come on, smegger, lighten up,” Lister said, grabbing Rimmer’s arm roughly to turn him around and bend him over the table, pinning him between the unforgiving surface and his weight. “You need to learn how to relax and enjoy life,” he said, twisting his arm painfully behind his back. “Or death, in your case.”

Rimmer suddenly felt like he was ten years old again, his father about to snap his arm. He struggled to stay present in the moment.

“Lister, stop!” he shouted, trying to wiggle out from under him. He couldn’t get any leverage from his position on the table. When he felt the firm heat growing between Lister’s legs, he started to panic. His blood ran cold at the sound of the zip. “Lister, please! Stop!”

A rough hand reached around to pull at the fastenings in Rimmer’s trousers. Undone, Lister grabbed the back of his trousers and pants, yanking them down his ass. He cried out pitifully as the blunt head of Lister’s cock pushed inside him.

Rimmer woke up screaming, sharp pain stabbing through him. He crawled out of bed and across the floor on his hands and knees before realizing it had been a dream.

 

As Lister walked into the sleeping quarters, he could sense something was amiss.

Lined up on the table were seven identical pairs of combat boots, shining like polished obsidian. Everything in the room had been organized into strict, right angles. The room had been cleaned and organized with an efficiency that would have given Kryten’s standards a run for their money.

Rimmer was standing at the wash basin, furiously scrubbing his hands, his right leg bouncing manically.

“Rimmer?” Lister said carefully. Rimmer didn’t seem to hear him, and continued lathering.

All of Rimmer’s old obsessive compulsive habits he had slowly dropped over the years seemed to have resurfaced overnight. Lister hadn’t seen the hand washing before, but Rimmer had mentioned it once as being one of his childhood habits. Lister wasn’t a psychologist, but he imagined this was probably bad.

“Rimmer,” Lister said again, keeping his distance. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve just got a bit of um, just a bit of… on my… just won’t come off.” He laughed nervously.

“Is there anything I can do?” Lister asked in a soft, sad voice.

“No,” Rimmer said crisply. “Everything is tickety-boo. Nothing could be hunky dorier.”

When Rimmer finally did finish washing his hands, he dried them quickly and went to the table to pack his polish kit away. He wouldn’t meet Lister’s eye.

“I’m sorry,” Lister said.

“Whatever for?” Rimmer asked in forced cheerfulness.

“For whatever I’ve done that’s bothering you.”

“Nothing is wrong. I am fine,” he replied stiffly.

Lister approached and Rimmer dropped his polish kit, leaping about four feet away. Lister stopped in his tracks, watching Rimmer grimly. Lister bent down and picked up the polish kit, setting it carefully back on the table. He looked at his reflection in the glossy high polished boots.

“I think you should talk to someone, Rimmer. I think we should boot up McClaren’s hologram and maybe you should talk to him.”

“McClaren?” Rimmer said with contempt. “The psychiatrist? Why?”

“I’ve just stood here and watched you wash your hands for ten minutes, you’re jumpier than a caffeinated Chihuahua. Something is bothering you, and clearly you don’t want to talk to me about it,” Lister said, trying to keep the self-recrimination out of his voice.

“I don’t want to talk to you about it because there’s nothing to talk about,” Rimmer insisted.

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

“I really don’t know what you mean,” he said, staring at his boots. Lister stepped forward and Rimmer backed up like a spooked deer. Lister stepped back, looking lost.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“What you do is of no consequence to me,” Rimmer replied flippantly.

“Fine, smeg head,” Lister said, hopping into his bunk and lighting a cigarette. He hoped Rimmer would object or lecture him, but he didn’t. Lister watched him nervously edge closer and carefully stick his shoe trees in his boots. He took the boots back to his wardrobe, where Lister could see that all of his clothes had been put back in their cellophane bags.

That evening, though Lister couldn’t see him, he could practically feel Rimmer not sleeping, laying in his bunk, stiff as his starched collars. The tension in the room was oppressive, and it was starting to give Lister a stomach ache. He was almost relieved when Rimmer finally got out of bed in the middle of the night and left.

 

As she toweled off her wet hair, having enjoyed the luxury of a bubble bath, something she made sure to enjoy every night since escaping the Tank, Kochanski heard a knock at her door.

She tied her fluffy robe tight and opened the door just in time to see Rimmer turning to go.

“Arnold,” she said. “Is everything okay?” Rimmer turned back and gave her a cringing smile.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I um. Do you know, I seem to have forgotten what I came for. Silly me. I’m sure it will come back in the morning.” He turned to leave again and Kochanski caught his arm.

“Come inside.”

As they sat at the table letting their tea go cold, Kochanski watched Rimmer bounce his right leg incessantly. She could see what Lister was talking about. He was wound tighter than a fisherman’s knot, and had that thousand yard stare.

“Arnold. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. Something is wrong, but I don’t know what. I’m afraid to sleep. I have awful dreams. Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind. Could this be the write failure Kryten was talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Kochanski lied, trying to keep the pained expression off her face.

“Lister said I should talk to the shrink.”

“Maybe… that might not be such a bad idea.”

“Do you think I’m crazy?”

“It has nothing to do with being crazy or not,” Kochanski insisted. “That is an outdated stigma. Lots of people talk to counsellors, it doesn’t make you crazy.”

“My father always said people who couldn’t pull themselves up by their own bootstraps were a drain on the species.”

“And look what happened to him,” she said automatically. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you’re right,” he sighed. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his long white fingers. “I had a dream about Lister.”

“What sort of dream?”

“It doesn’t matter. But I can’t get it out of my head. It felt so real. I’m afraid to have it again if I go to sleep.”

“Do you want to sleep here tonight?”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“It wouldn’t be the first kip we had together.” Rimmer looked confused for a moment.

“Oh, right,” he said. He vaguely remembered she’d slept over in his quarters, but he couldn’t remember why.

Kochanski’s bunk was much smaller than the captain’s bed, and she and Rimmer’s positions were much cozier. Kochanski’s petite frame snuggled close to the hologram, her head tucked under his chin and his long arms wrapped around her. It was different when she’d slept with Lister, who was almost the same height as her. With Rimmer, she felt engulfed.

Sometime in the night Kochanski woke up alone. She heard the tap running in the bathroom. When she got up to investigate, she saw Rimmer furiously scrubbing his hands. His whole body was shaking like a leaf.

“Arnold.” She touched his shoulder and she still wasn’t sure he even realized she was there. “Arnold,” she said again, giving him a little shake. “Arnold, stop.” She turned the tap off and pulled his hands away.

“I’m losing my mind, I’m losing my mind,” he said breathlessly. Rimmer was shaking so bad that he couldn’t stand and sunk to the floor. Kochanski tried to keep him up, but he was too heavy and she went down with him.

“It’s okay, just breathe, Arnold. Breathe.” She held his hands, locking eyes with him. “In, one, two, three, four, five. Hold, one, two, three, four, five. Out, one, two, three, four, five.”

“Kris, I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Rimmer wheezed.

“You’re having a panic attack. It’s alright, it will pass. You’re safe, you’re safe. It’s okay.” She rubbed his numb hands and encouraged him to keep breathing.

 

In the morning, she accompanied him to McClaren’s office. Holly powered down all unnecessary systems, allowing McClaren’s hologram to run.

Rimmer sat down cagily opposite the overly cheery man. McClaren grinned wider, like a Cheshire cat with a Glasgow smile. Rimmer felt slightly nauseous.

“Mr. Rimmer,” McClaren purred. “I must say, I’m quite pleased to see you here.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I’ve wanted to get you in my chair for the longest time. Your personnel file has always made interesting reading.” Rimmer squirmed in his seat. “Now, what is it that brings you here today?”

Rimmer realized this was a big mistake. The nightmares, the heart palpitations, the suffocating panic, the voices… it wasn’t so bad. Wasn’t something he couldn’t just swallow and pretend wasn’t happening. He couldn’t imagine telling McClaren the weather, let alone his anxieties. Rimmer shifted in his chair again.

“I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” he forced himself to say.

“Oh, that’s not lovely, is it?” McClaren batted his eyes and Rimmer’s mouth felt like sandpaper. “What sort of trouble?”

“I’ve been having nightmares,” he admitted.

“Tell me about the nightmares. Do they have scary monsters in them? Or are they the naked in a classroom kind?” McClaren asked, wagging his head and looking up at Rimmer from under his eyebrows. Rimmer felt as though he was being talked to like a toddler with an incontinence issue. This had definitely been a mistake.

 

“What a pathetic, dribbling idiot,” Rimmer barked as he met Lister and Kochanski in the refectory.

“Finished your first session then, did you?” Lister asked, watching Rimmer pace. The hologram was too keyed up to sit.

“Yes. Your genius plan went about as well as the time you tried to make inflatable swimming trunks.”

“Well what did he have to say?”

“He thinks I have repressed memories that are causing my anxiety,” Rimmer scoffed. Lister and Kochanski looked at each other nervously. “If I can’t repress the memories of having to watch Lister eat his own toenail clippings, I doubt I’d be able to repress anything.”

“What does he suggest?”

“He wants to do some sort of memory retrieval therapy, and dig up whatever is supposedly causing the anxiety.” Rimmer rolled his eyes and Lister looked pale.

“Maybe you were right,” he said. “Maybe talking to McClaren wasn’t such a hot idea.” Kochanski kicked him under the table. “Ow, what the smeg?”

“Dave, can you just help me with something over here for a second?” Kochanski asked, dragging Lister away from the table. When they were out of Rimmer’s earshot she hissed, “don’t worry about this. His memories are password protected, remember? No matter what McClaren tries, he won’t be able to unlock them without the password. In the meantime, there is still the off chance that he’ll be able to help manage Arnold’s anxiety.” Lister raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, he’s Arnold now, is he?”

“Don’t start,” she glared. They returned to the table and Kochanski said, “it’s only the first session. I think you should keep at it. What’s the worst that could happen?”

 

Rimmer returned to his and Lister’s bunkroom after his second session with McClaren, kicking one of Lister’s boots out of his way.

“I swear McClaren is thicker than a urine recyc foam mustache.”

“Still no joy?” Lister asked.

“Of course not. You know what he was like.” He did, but Lister was still nervous.

“Listen, em, supposing all this repressed memory business is true, wouldn’t it make sense that it was repressed for a reason?” Lister suggested.

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, if something so horrible happened that you repressed your memory, wouldn’t you rather not know?” Rimmer crossed his arms and eyed Lister critically. Lister started to sweat.

“ _If_ something terrible happened and _if_ it’s being repressed, it doesn’t seem to be repressing any of the anxiety.” Rimmer sat down at the table, looking exhausted. “I feel like there’s this huge life sucking black hole of _something_ looming behind me all the time. As if it’s all going to come crashing down on me at any second.”

Lister’s stomach rolled with guilt. He wondered if simply erasing Rimmer’s memory might have alleviated the post traumatic symptoms instead. The idea of hacking away at Rimmer’s mind, bit by bit because of Lister’s stupid _prank_ made him feel ill.

He was starting to realize there was no way to cheat their way out of this. He may have wormed himself off the hook for it in Rimmer’s mind, but Rimmer was still suffering for it. That fact that he was off the hook made him feel worse.

A small part of him almost wanted McClaren to unearth the evil truth. A small part of him wanted to confess to everything. A small part of him that he drown out with shots of the GELF hooch he’d found in Starbug’s cargo hold.

 

Lister wasn’t sure if it was the 900 proof, slightly hallucinogenic gut rotting alcohol, or the soul rotting guilt, but he was starting to feel rather paranoid as of late.

At first, Rimmer had delighted in telling anyone who would listen how stupid and incompetent and idiotic McClaren was. It seemed their scheme had worked. True, Rimmer was still screaming and agonizing in his sleep, but baby steps were being made.

Soon, however, Rimmer’s complaints about the psychiatrist trickled off, and Lister started getting nervous. Eventually they ceased all together, and Lister was terrified.

Every time Rimmer returned from a session, Lister’s mind hissed like a tea kettle.

_‘He knows. He knooooooows!’_

But Rimmer never said anything. He was reluctant to talk about his sessions when Lister inquired, and then refused to speak of them at all.

“It’s private, and none of your smegging business,” Rimmer would tell him.

If he knew, why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t he let Lister know he knew? Why didn’t verbally flagellate him? Why didn’t he move out again?

No, this was ten times worse, letting him wonder. Letting him believe he’d possibly gotten away with his evil deed. Lister’s conscience festered.

After enough time of Rimmer not saying anything, Lister was beginning to think Rimmer actually still didn’t know. When he walked into their sleeping quarters, he saw it on the table, and his stomach dropped into his boots.

Sitting on the table was a glass. A glass containing liquid. Syrupy red liquid.

Rimmer knew, and he left that there for Lister to find to let him know he knew. Lister felt cold all over, and he wanted to run out of the sleeping quarters, but he found himself glued to the floor, staring at that treacherous philter.

The Cat strolled in wearing his heavy velvet housecoat and dogskin slippers, picked up the glass, and tossed it in the back of his throat like a shot. He pulled a face.

“I hate cherry. Where’d the rest of the absinthe flavoured cough syrup go? You might wanna be careful buddy, there’s something going around,” the Cat said, snatching a hot water bottle and slipped out again.

Lister’s heart started beating again. He was losing it. He sat at the table and lit a cigarette as Rimmer came into the room.

The hologram paused at the doorway, giving Lister an enigmatic look that the Scouser couldn’t quite read. The look didn’t last long enough to warrant Lister commenting on it, so he didn’t.

 

Weeks went by as Lister’s conscience tormented himself while he self-medicated in the Copacabana Hawaiian Cocktail Bar. Every time he started to think Rimmer was still in the dark about why he couldn’t sleep at night, Rimmer would catch his eye with that look.

Lister knocked back his drink and poured another.

Rimmer still had the nightmares, but they didn’t come every night anymore. He still washed his hands excessively, but not for ten minutes at a time. He still had panic attacks, but was learning how to come down from them on his own.

Lister supposed that was progress. He was about to take another drink when a pale hand picked it out of his brown one. Rimmer was looking at him with that look.

“I wish you would just punch me or something,” Lister said.

“I’m not going to punch you.” Rimmer poured the drink down the drain and sat next to Lister. His eyes were clear and his voice was steady. “I think we should talk.”


End file.
